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AMERICANISM 



Books By David Jayne Hill 

A History of Diplomacy in the In- 
ternational Development of Europe* 

Vol. I — The Struggle for Universal Empire. 
With 5 Colored Maps, Chronological Tables, 
List of Treaties and Index. Pp. XXIII- 
481. $5.00 

Vol. II— The Establishment of Territorial 
Sovereignity. With 4 Colored Maps, Ta- 
bles, etc. Pp. XXIV -688. $5.00 

Vol. Ill — The Diplomacy of the Age of 
Absolutism. With 5 Colored Maps, Tables, 
etc. Pp. XXVI-706. $6.00 

World Organization, as Affected by the Nature 
of the Modern State. Pp. IX-214. $1.50. 

Translated also into French and German. 

The People's Government. 

Pp. X-288. $1.25 net. 

Americanism — What It Is. 

Pp. XV -283 $1.25 net. 



AMERICANISM 

WHAT IT IS 



BY 



DAVID JAYNE HILL, LL.D. 

AUTHOR OF " THE PEOPLE'S GOVERNMENT" 




D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 

NEW YORK LONDON 

1916 



I J o 



Copyright, 1916, by 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 



Printed in the United States of America 



% 



•JIJN 17 1916 



>CI.A431559 



' 7 '-f\/, 



// we zvould supplant the opinions and policy of 
our fathers in any case, we should do so upon evi- 
dence so conclusive, and arguments so clear, that 
even their great authority fairly considered and 
xceighed cannot stand. 

Abraham Lincoln. 



PREFACE 

This little book is intended to set forth as 
clearly as possible what is most original and dis- 
tinctive in American political conceptions and 
most characteristic of the American spirit. 

The field of thought here covered, no doubt, ad- 
mits of differences of opinion regarding the value 
and importance of that which is distinctively 
American; but there can hardly be any contro- 
versy over what it is. 

It requires only a brief employment of the 
method of exclusion to determine what it is not. 

It cannot be maintained that Americanism, 
whatever it is, is a matter of race. Our country 
from the beginning has been populated by people 
of widely different ethnic origins. Some of their 
qualities are perpetuated with practically little 
effacement, others are obscured by the syncretism 
of races ; but there is no definable ethnic type that 
is exclusively entitled to be called American. 

vii 



PREFACE 

Equally futile would be the attempt to define 
Americanism in terms of geography. There are, 
it is true, wide diversities of habits, manners, cus- 
toms, and ideas among our people in the various 
States ; but there is nothing in all these variations 
that justifies a denial of Americanism to any of 
them. 

And yet not every man who lives in the United 
States, or who has been born here, can be classed 
as an American, in the sense which we all, with 
more or less clearness, attach to that word. We 
feel that we are not misusing language when we 
say of a man who entertains certain ideas and sen- 
timents that he is un-American. 

We speak of "assimilating" the new elements 
that enter into our population, and we call it spe- 
cifically "Americanization." What is it then that 
is involved in this transformation? 

We have developed here in America a new esti- 
mate of human values, and this has led to a new 
understanding of life. It has become difficult for 
us to comprehend the course of events in Europe, 
and it is impossible for Europe to understand us. 
We have, especially of late, imported many iso- 

viii 



PREFACE 

lated European ideas into our country, but they 
do not seem to fit into our system of things. 

The reason is obvious. Our fundamental prin- 
ciples are different. They are even contradictory. 
We have long ago abandoned a great part of what 
Europe still holds sacred. If we had a dynasty of 
hereditary rulers ; if we had a State religion ; if 
we had formed a habit, and it had become heredi- 
tary, of giving ourselves up body and soul to the 
exigencies of the State ; if we were surrounded by 
powerful enemies ; then we might understand many 
things that happen in Europe which now seem to 
us unreasonable and almost insensate. We some- 
times forget that our earliest traditions as a peo- 
ple,— and we do not regard ourselves as any 
longer young, — were an open, a heroic, and a 
bloody revolt against all that. 

But our Americanism is not a mere negation. 
It is a positive, constructive force. It starts with 
the idea, that the human individual has an intrinsic 
value. It holds that he has an inherent right to 
bring to fruition all his native powers, and to en- 
joy the fruits of his efforts. His real value lies 
not in what he has, but in what he is and may 

ix 



PREFACE 

become; and he may become anything his capaci- 
ties and his achievements may enable him to be. 

This whole conception of life is based upon the 
significance of the individual ; but the latest, if not 
the prevailing, fashion of thought is, to speak 
slightingly of the individual, — of his rights, of his 
capacities, and of his responsibilities. We are at 
present seeking progress, not through a develop- 
ment of the individual, but through what society 
as a whole can do for itself ; forgetting that society 
is a purely abstract idea, possessing no inherent 
power either of initiative or of achievement. Yet 
it has become almost a reproach to stand for the 
rights of the individual, who is the only motive 
power that society possesses. 

The contemporary reaction against American- 
ism erroneously assumes that individualism is ego- 
ism. On the contrary, it is the only solid founda- 
tion for our duty to respect the other man's rights. 
And this is the essence of Americanism as revealed 
in the history of its origin. 

David Jayne Hill. 

Washington, D. C. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER * PAGE 

I. THE AMERICAN CONCEPTION OF THE 

STATE .3 

The Preeminence of the State. Alleged 
Immunities of the State. The Predatory 
Beginnings of the State. The Reason for 
the State's Irresponsibility. The American 
Protest Against Mere Power. A New Con- 
ception of the State. The Essential Limits 
of Sovereignty. The Distinctive American 
Doctrine,, An American Contribution to 
Political Theory. The Renunciation of Ar- 
bitrary Power. The Separation of Civil 
and Religious Interests. The Real Signifi- 
cance of the Constitution. Hostility to Con- 
stitutional Guarantees. Ill-Considered Pro- 
posals of Change. The Importance of the 
American Example. Essential Elements in 
the American Conception. Obstacles to 
World Organization. The American Con- 
ception and the Future. 

xi 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

II. THE CRISIS IN AMERICAN CONSTITU- 
TIONALISM . . . ... .49 

The Friends and the Enemies of Constitu- 
tionalism. The Means of Guaranteeing 
Equality. The Constitution as a Bar to 
Demagogism. Constitutional Changes. Un- 
constitutional Encroachments. Unconstitu- 
tional Legislation. The Renunciation of 
Arbitrary Power. Results of the Spirit of 
Domination. The Fruits of Government by 
Law. The Danger of Class Control. The 
Attacks Upon the Constitution. The Drift 
of Social Forces. The Needed Revival of 
Americanism. Principles versus Personali- 
ties. The Only Rock of Salvation. The 
Need of Organization. 



III. TAKING SOUNDINGS • . . . .85 

The Revolt Against Fixed Principles. The 
Essential Permanence of Law. The Sub- 
stitution of Experiment for Experience. 
Reason versus Emotion. No Denial of Op- 
position to the Constitution. Rights as the 
Gift of Society. The True Nature of Public 
Authority. The Nature of New Legislation 
Demanded. The Pragmatic Character of 
These Demands. The Mask of Philan- 

xii 



CONTENTS 

TER 

thropy. The Constitution Not a Class 
Guarantee. The Value of Constitutional 
Guarantees. The Spirit of Revolt Against 
Fundamental Law. A Perilous Situation. 



IV. THE TESTS OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 125 

The Test of Democracy as a Theory. The 
Real Problem of Government. Responsibil- 
ity in a True Democracy. Democracy 
versus Imperialism. The Irresponsibility 
of Majority Absolutism. Just Government 
Essentially Self-limiting. The Conflict Be- 
tween Democracy and Imperialism. The 
Strength of Imperialism. Weak Points in 
Democracy. Is Democracy an Impedi- 
ment to Duty? Our Own Relation to Im- 
perialism. The British Example. The 
Democratic Ideal. The Test of Our Own 
Democracy. The Triumph of Democracy. 



AMERICANISM AND WORLD POLITICS . 161 

The Real Basis of International Law. Do 
Inherent National Rights Exist? The Pos- 
sibility of World Organization. The Im- 
pediments to World Organization. The 
Present Basis of National Security. The 

xiii 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

Necessity of National Strength. An Amer- 
ican Platform of Principles. Opposition to 
American Principles. The League to En- 
force Peace. The Incompatibility of Im- 
perialism and Democracy. The Relation of 
Peace to Justice. The Relation of Peace to 
Force. The Traditional American Attitude. 
The Fear of Militarism. 

VI. THE DUTY OF NATIONAL DEFENSE . 195 

Some Irrelevant Propositions. The Real 
Question Stated. Our Primary National 
Obligation. The Fruits of the New Politics. 
The Dominance of Economic Thinking. 
The Influence of Pacifism. The Effects of 
Political Pacifism. The Loss* of National 
Prestige. An Unrecognized Source of Dan- 
ger. Our First Line of Defense. Our 
Special American Interests. The Need of 
a Clear Foreign Policy. The Present In- 
ternational Problem. The Attitude of Our 
Young Men. The Necessity of National 
Ideals. The Nation's Duty to the Future. 

VII. NEW PERILS FOR AMERICANISM . . 233 

The International Situation. The World 
Conflict for Trade. The Possible Expan- 

xiv 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

sion of Empire. The Alternative of World 
Rivalry. Our Advantage of Position. The 
Advantage of Our Democracy. Our Policy 
Marked Out for Us. The Economic Con- 
test. The Conditions of the Struggle. 
The Militarization of Industry. The Ob- 
stacles to European Recuperation. The 
Question of Future Markets. Our Own 
Economic Situation. The Meaning of Mili- 
tarizing Industry. The Possibilities of 
American Initiative. The Danger of Eco- 
nomic Menace. The Industrial Situation to 
be Faced. The Opportunity of America. 

INDEX 269 






THE AMERICAN CONCEPTION 
OF THE STATE 



I 

THE AMERICAN CONCEPTION OF THE STATE 

If, as the theory of Imperialism implies, 
the State were in reality a superior entity, 
apart from the individuals who compose it, 
and this entity were capable of foresight, 
supervision, and protective care, it would 
not be altogether unreasonable for men to 
submit themselves to it without reserve. As 
a matter of fact, however, there is no such 
superior entity. The truth is that in civil- 
ized communities men live under a system 
of relatively fixed legalized relations which 
we call the State; but that which gives us a 
sense of its reality is not the State itself, 
which is nowhere visible, but the Govern- 
ment, or body of men, which claims to act 
in its name. 

3 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

THE PREEMINENCE OF THE STATE 

We are all, no doubt, very much imposed 
upon by the alleged claims and authority of 
the State, which in the abstract are so evi- 
dent that we do not think of denying them. 
The noblest of human virtues, we are as- 
sured, is devotion to the State. It stands 
for order and justice among men. Without 
it there would be no security for life or prop- 
erty. No people is deserving of respect that 
is not ready to make sacrifices for the State; 
for it is the State that redeems the individ- 
ual from a merely animal existence, and 
transports him from the realm of mere 
sensual indulgence to the domain of far- 
reaching historic action. At their best, in- 
dividuals are only like the leaves of a tree. 
They serve their purpose for a season, and 
then fall into decay. The State, like the 
tree itself, lives on. Through summer sun- 

4 



AMERICAN CONCEPTION OF THE STATE 

shine and wintry storms its roots penetrate 
to greater depths and its branches rise to 
greater heights, — a symbol of unceasing 
growth, of continuity of purpose, and of 
uninterrupted achievement. Happy should 
be the leaves it has lifted to the heavens, to 
fall and perish at its feet, if they may there- 
by supply it with new nourishment and sus- 
tain its larger life! 

There is, at first thought, something very 
plausible about this line of reasoning. The 
State, when rightly conceived, is, undoubt- 
edly, more important than the individual; 
and it would seem conclusive that, if one or 
the other is to be sacrificed, it should not be 
the State. Not only the magnitude of the 
interests guarded by it, but its intrinsic 
character as the organ of justice, would 
seem to place its claims above all else. But 
can it be contended that even this high pre- 
rogative, through which the State becomes 

5 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

the custodian of our most sacred rights and 
liberties, exempts the persons who represent 
it from the observance of the principles of 
justice for which it is said to exist? 



ALLEGED IMMUNITIES OF THE STATE 

To the unsophisticated man it is inexpli- 
cable that the State, claiming the right of 
command as the guardian of human rights, 
should not be governed by the ordinary pre- 
cepts of morality. He cannot understand 
why it is that what would be condemned as 
a crime if done by an individual citizen, 
should be made the object of public rejoic- 
ing and national pride if performed by a 
government. "How," he asks, "can the 
State consistently require honesty in word 
and deed of me, and at the same time not 
only practice diplomatic equivocation but 
expect me to sacrifice my life in defending 

6 



AMERICAN CONCEPTION OF THE STATE 

it? Why is it that the State punishes me 
with death if I kill my personal enemy, who 
has done me a real wrong; and yet may re- 
quire me to join in killing innocent people, 
who have injured no one, and only pray to 
be let alone? Why should the State repress 
and punish robbery, pillage, and assassina- 
tion within its own borders ; and, at the same 
time, compel its subjects or citizens to aid 
in the invasion and acquisition of territory 
that does not belong to it, and in despoiling 
the property and taking the lives of non- 
combatants by exploding shells and falling 
bombs? In brief, what is it that gives 
a government a right, without judge or 
jury, without proof of guilt or evi- 
dence of evil intention, at any time, for 
any reason, or finally for no reason at 
all except its own glory or aggrandize- 
ment, to enjoy a monopoly of doing with 
impunity that which all individual men 

7 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

are condemned and punished for attempt- 
ing? 

As a question of ethics, it is impossible 
to justify a distinction between private and 
public morality; but it is not primarily a 
question of ethics, it is a question of historic 
fact. The privilege of employing armed 
force for any purpose it sees fit is a tradi- 
tionally recognized prerogative of every 
Sovereign State; not because the're is in 
every free and independent community of 
men an inherent right to treat with violence 
every other such community, but because the 
condition of human society offers no method 
of preventing a nation that wishes for any 
reason to make war upon another from do- 
ing so, except by a similar use of armed 
force against it. In short, the only re- 
straint upon the conduct of a Sovereign 
State, outside of its own will, is armed force; 
and, in an abstract sense, one State has as 

8 



AMERICAN CONCEPTION OF THE STATE 

good a right to exercise it as another. 
Everything, therefore, depends upon each 
State's own conception of its duty. 



THE PREDATORY BEGINNINGS OF THE STATE 

If we pause to inquire into the origin of 
the State, we see that, in its beginnings, it 
was not a moral institution, nor intended to 
be an organ of justice, but, on the contrary, 
a predatory enterprise, the result of domi- 
nation from within by a ruling class deriv- 
ing a benefit from the subjection of a servile 
class, or of domination from without by the 
invasion and conquest of territories and pop- 
ulations unable to resist the aggression of 
the stronger. At first, all the inhabitants 
of the conquered territory were destroyed, 
and its property taken over. Later, the 
women and children were retained as slaves. 
Still later, the whole population was spared, 

9 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

but reduced to the condition of a servile 
class, and compelled to pay tribute to the 
conqueror. Such is the history of every 
dynastic State of antiquity, and the same 
may be said of most of the Great Powers 
which exist today. It is only within very 
recent times, and chiefly because the com- 
mon people have at last become able, by 
virtue of representative government, to with- 
hold the payment of tribute from their rul- 
ers, that they have come to be recognized 
as constituents of the State, and allowed 
some voice in the government. 

THE REASON FOR THE STATE'S IRRESPONSI- 
BILITY 

The historic origin of the State enables 
us to understand its comparative irresponsi- 
bility. Based primarily on the possession 
of superior force, the absolute supremacy of 
the governing authority has been, as a mat- 

10 



AMERICAN CONCEPTION OF THE STATE 

ter of fact> unquestioned and unquestion- 
able. The unlimited and arbitrary will of 
the ruler has, therefore, been compulsory; 
and it has been considered expedient to ac- 
cord to it a prompt and uncomplaining 
obedience. 

When, with the growth of intelligence, 
philosophers began to theorize about the 
nature of the State, they were confronted 
by the actual existence of absolute power. 
As authority did, in fact, emanate from the 
"sovereign," the abstract attribute of "sover- 
eignty," and not the inherent rights of the 
individuals composing the population, was 
taken to represent the essence and control- 
ling principle of the State; and "sover- 
eignty," thus conceived, was defined as "su- 
preme power." Wherever that was to be 
found, there was the substance of the State; 
and, being supreme, it was not only the 
source of law, but by hypothesis above the 

11 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

law, since it is from "sovereignty" that all 
law proceeds. 

Thus was a temporary and abnormal state 
of fact emphasized and immortalized as a 
legal conception, the one prime fountain- 
head from which all other legal conceptions 
were to be deduced; for what in this con- 
ception is the law, if not a decree of "sover- 
eign power"? And what rights has any in- 
dividual under the law, except those that 
supreme power accords to him? The State, 
therefore, is everything. The "subject" — 
and the "citizen," too, under that concep- 
tion — is nothing but a creature of the 
State. 

Rightful authority and supreme power, 
though in reality so widely different, are 
in this theory completely identified. "Who- 
ever," declares this doctrine, "possesses su- 
preme power has rightful authority to com- 
mand." If it is the sovereign's will to wage 

12 



AMERICAN CONCEPTION OF THE STATE 

war, there is no court of appeal. Individual 
rights and private morality are entirely sub- 
ordinate in this system. 

THE AMERICAN PROTEST AGAINST MERE 
POWER 

It is interesting to note that the first really 
radical protest against this conception of the 
State came from America, and it is a protest 
that may very properly be emphasized to- 
day ; not officially by our Government, which 
in recognition of the society of Sovereign 
States — if one may use that expression with- 
out derision — is obliged to respect certain 
international traditions, however erroneous 
and inconsistent they may be, but by our- 
selves as individual citizens, who, not be- 
ing charged with that obligation, may 
freely think, and freely express our 
thoughts. 

When I say the first radical protest came 
13 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

from America, I speak with precision. 
Long before Jean Jacques Rousseau wrote 
of the "Contrat Social/' or John Locke of a 
"Civil Compact/' a company of plain men, 
sailing over wintry seas to an unknown 
land with the purpose of escaping the too 
heavy hand of an absolute government, on 
November 11, 1620, as they were approach- 
ing the shores of what was afterward New 
England, drew up and signed in the cabin 
of their little ship a compact which expressed 
a new idea of human government. This 
was nearly thirty years before the famous 
"Agreement of the People" of 1647, in 
which the followers of Cromwell endeavored 
to establish for the security of their rights 
against the encroachments of arbitrary 
power a supreme law placed above the 
power of Parliament. The compact writ- 
ten in the Mayflower pledged the signers 
not only to frame for themselves "just and 

14 



AMERICAN CONCEPTION OF THE STATE 

equal laws," but "to jjield to them all due 
submission and obedience." Here was the 
beginning of real self-government. 

There was nothing original in the mere 
fact of a written compact, for written com- 
pacts had long before been extorted from 
kings and emperors by popular uprisings. 
The new leaven was the voluntary submis- 
sion to self -imposed law, as a means of se- 
curing a permanent guarantee of individual 
rights. 

No new State was at that time organized 
on this basis, for the Pilgrims continued to 
be loyal to the King of England ; but a new 
idea had entered the minds of men, the idea 
that all just government must be based on 
the recognition of individual rights and lib- 
erties, rights and liberties so sacred that even 
governments are bound to respect them; 
for it is only on account of them that govern- 
ments have a right to exist. 

15 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

A NEW CONCEPTION OF THE STATE 

For the first time since Europe emerged 
from primitive savagery, an opportunity 
was offered for the free exercise of intelli- 
gence in considering the fundamental prob- 
lems of government, without interference on 
the part of arbitrary power and dynastic 
interests; for the isolation from the Old 
World was, in effect, a return to a condition 
of nature, so far as government was con- 
cerned; while, at the same time, in mental 
development and political experience the 
colonists possessed the full maturity of the 
age in which they lived. The result was a 
new and distinctive conception of the State 
— a conception differing by the whole di- 
ameter of human experience from that which 
was then generally accepted in other parts 
of the world, not excepting England. 

In what, then, did that new conception 
16 



AMERICAN CONCEPTION OF THE STATE 

consist? In migrating to the New World 
the men of the colonial period brought with 
them an exceptionally rich political inheri- 
tance, the highest and the noblest that, up 
to that time, had ever existed. They pos- 
sessed the traditions of representative gov- 
ernment and the idea of personal guaran- 
tees contained in Magna Charta, with its 
solemn pledge that "No freeman shall be 
taken, or imprisoned, or be disseized of his 
free hold, or his liberties, or his free cus- 
toms, or be outlawed, or exiled, or otherwise 
destroyed, but by the lawful judgment of 
his peers, or by the law of the land." All 
that had been long before wrung from the 
hand of royal power as the heritage of Eng- 
lishmen. In time the later colonists 
brought with them, and shared as British 
subjects, the body of principles vindicated 
in the English Revolution of 1688, doctrines 

for which Englishmen had struggled heroi- 
3 17 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

cally before their supremacy was established 
by their triumph over the absolutism of the 
Stuart dynasty. With the writings of Rous- 
seau and the French philosophers only a few 
were acquainted. With the sounder po- 
litical philosophy of John Locke, which in 
its mode of reasoning was more congenial 
to the American understanding, a greater 
number were familiar. But in their own 
deepest convictions, high above the foothills 
of mere theory and argumentation, towered 
like a sun-lit mountain top the self-evident 
truth that a just government must be based 
on the inherent rights of the governed; and 
when that maxim was denied, not only by 
the King but also by the British Parlia- 
ment, the moment for separation and the 
formation of a new government had arrived. 
To them it seemed preposterous that the 
State could be one thing and the individuals 
composing it another. Equally clear to 

18 



AMERICAN CONCEPTION OF THE STATE 

them was the idea that individuals, in their 
organic relations as a body politic, not only 
constitute the State, but the whole of the 
State; for what, in the last analysis, is the 
State but the organic union of its citizens? 
Both royalty and parliamentary representa- 
tion are merely institutions of the State — 
the King as the symbol of its unity, the Par- 
liament as the organ of its deliberations — 
but neither of these is the source of its au- 
thority, which must be sought in the body 
politic itself, in the organic unity of a co- 
herent people, associated together for the 
security of their individual rights. 

THE ESSENTIAL LIMITS OF SOVEREIGNTY 

What, then, in this conception of the 
State, is "sovereignty"— for the word and 
the idea were already firmly fixed in the 
legal traditions of the world? Only "Sov- 

19 



| t H 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

ereign States" could have a standing in the 
society of nations. The new State about 
to be formed must, therefore, be in some 
sense "sovereign," if it was to be recognized 
as independent; but the idea of absolute 
sovereignty, the unlimited authority of "su- 
preme power," that was precisely what they 
were opposing; that was what they could 
never accept, and consequently could not 
claim for themselves, for the simple reason 
that human nature is not absolute. Not 
any more than a king could a parliament, 
or even their own colonial assemblies in 
which they were represented, be allowed to 
possess arbitrary power; for there were in- 
dividual rights which they meant to reserve 
— "inalienable" rights as they expressed it — 
which should not be surrendered to any 
earthly power. So far as the laws of na- 
tions were concerned, they, as much as any 
others, were an independent and a sover- 

20 



AMERICAN CONCEPTION OF THE STATE 

eign people; but the right of either men or 
nations to do whatever they pleased, to place 
themselves above the law, or to declare their 
mere will to be the law, seemed to them to 
have no warrant. Such a pretension was, in 
their eyes, mere usurpation. 

The true nature of the State, they con- 
sidered, must be determined by its end. In 
this all the colonies at the moment of their 
struggle for independence were in perfect 
agreement. What they claimed for them- 
selves they cheerfully accorded to all others, 
even to the least among them, and on a 
basis of equality. The State, they believed, 
existed to preserve their rights and liber- 
ties ; and the Constitution of Massachusetts, 
adopted in 1780 and never since superseded, 
in even more precise terms than the Declara- 
tion of Independence distinctly asserted in 
its first sentence : "The end of the existence, 
maintenance, and administration of govern- 

21 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

ment is to furnish the individuals who com- 
pose the body politic with the power of en- 
joying, in safety and tranquillity, their nat- 
ural rights and the blessings of life." And 
in the Declaration of Rights which consti- 
tutes its first article, it is declared: "All 
men • . . have certain natural, essential, 
and inalienable rights; among which may 
be reckoned the right of enjoying and 
defending their lives and liberties: that of 
acquiring, possessing, and protecting prop- 
erty; in fine, that of seeking and obtaining 
their happiness." 

THE DISTINCTIVE AMERICAN DOCTRINE 

The American colonies varied greatly in 
their relations to the British Crown, as well 
as in their religious ideas and their economic 
interests; but all united in a definite con- 
ception of the ends and purposes of the 

22 



AMERICAN CONCEPTION OF THE STATE 

State. It existed, they thought, for the pro- 
tection of individual rights and liberties. All 
alike shared in the provisions of the Great 
Charter, which set definite limits to the royal 
authority; but the Great Charter permitted 
anything and everything to be done, if it 
was by the will of those who made the law — 
and these were far less than a majority of 
the people. The American colonists be- 
lieved that there were things that should 
never be done, even by the "law of the land." 
There were, they thought, human rights, 
so individual, so necessary to be guarded, 
so impossible for a God-fearing man to sur- 
render, that the Government had no right 
over them. Their contest was not merely 
with the King, but also with the British 
Parliament. They did not believe that its 
legislation, if contrary to certain fundamen- 
tal principles of right, could possibly be 
law. 

23 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

The Stamp Act of 1765 was, in itself, 
no great matter. It proposed to raise only 
100,000 pounds sterling to be used for the 
maintenance of soldiers in America. In 
Parliament, Conway and Barre raised con- 
stitutional objections; but it was the elder 
Pitt who was the great protagonist of Amer- 
ican opposition to the Act. When it was 
passed, his health was so broken that he 
could not hold a pen or walk without 
crutches. When in January, 1766, he was 
able to crawl into a carriage and be car- 
ried into the House of Commons, after re- 
ferring to the subject as "of greater im- 
portance than ever engaged the attention 
of this House! that subject only excepted, 
when, near a century ago, it was the ques- 
tion whether you were to be bond or free," 
he declared: "It is my opinion that this 
Kingdom has no right to lay a tax upon 
the colonies." Then follows his argument, 

24 



AMERICAN CONCEPTION OF THE STATE 

in which he states that "the distinction be- 
tween legislation and taxation is necessary 
to liberty." Since only the Commons have 
power to vote taxes, and the Americans are 
not represented in Parliament, he argues, 
there exists no right to tax them; and yet, 
he affirms, the Americans, being "subjects" 
of Great Britain, although not taxable by 
the British House of Commons are subject 
to the legislation of the Commons, the 
Lords, and the Crown, which are equally 
legislative powers. 

It is just here that the colonists, and cer- 
tainly most Americans of today, while not 
challenging the validity of Lord Chatham's 
interpretation of the British Constitution, 
would dissent from the political theory that 
underlies it. While taxation was, in the 
War of Independence, the question at issue, 
the colonists would quite as stoutly have 
opposed an attempt by the King, the Lords, 

25 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

and the Commons to impose upon them 
legislation affecting their civil and religious 
liberties. The truth is, the American con- 
ception of the State was radically different 
from the British conception. It went far 
beyond Magna Charta. That provided that 
specially enumerated rights and liberties 
should never be taken away from an Eng- 
lishman "but by the lawful judgment of 
his peers, or by the law of the land," but 
the American idea was that there are cer- 
tain rights and liberties which should never 
be subject to abridgment by law, and that 
encroachments upon these rights and lib- 
erties by a portion — even by a majority — 
of the people, or by any government they 
might establish, should be, through a su- 
perior and permanent law, declared illegal. 
For this there was necessary a voluntary re- 
nunciation of power in accordance with fixed 
principles of justice. 

26 



AMERICAN CONCEPTION OF THE STATE 

AN AMERICAN CONTRIBUTION TO POLITICAL 
THEORY 

That is the original and distinctive con- 
tribution of the American mind to political 
theory. It holds that there should be noth- 
ing in government that is not governed by 
law. The absolutism of Parliament was as 
odious as the absolutism of the King. When 
the American colonists set about their con- 
structive work, their problem was to de- 
stroy and prevent forever the recurrence of 
absolutism in every form, whether official or 
popular, whether of dominant individuals or 
of popular majorities. All alike, grasping 
for power, aiming to attain their ends by 
legislation, they should find themselves con- 
fronted by granite barriers which they could 
not pass. 

This idea, wholly new and distinctive in 
its application to the people themselves, the 

27 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

Americans embodied in their constitutions. 
Other nations had thrown off the yoke of 
tyrants, others had won their complete in- 
dependence, others had made it impossible 
for a personal ruler to impose his arbitrary 
will; but never before had a people volun- 
tarily subscribed to certain definite prin- 
ciples of right which they bound themselves 
to regard, and at the same time made it im- 
possible for themselves to abolish without 
solemn deliberation and a fresh appeal to 
the whole people. Then, following the tra- 
dition of submitting to the judgment of their 
peers, in order to give security to the sys- 
tem of self-government thus devised, they 
instituted courts to maintain it by the deci- 
sions of neutral judges, with the duty of 
measuring the legislation they were required 
to apply by the restrictions of the funda- 
mental law. 



28 



AMERICAN CONCEPTION OF THE STATE 
THE RENUNCIATION OF ARBITRARY POWER 

This system of voluntary renunciation of 
arbitrary power was no man's personal in- 
vention, nor was it a deduction from any 
form of political theory. It was simply the 
result of experience and the application of 
common knowledge. The colonists had suf- 
fered from the imposition of obnoxious laws, 
and they were accustomed to read their civil 
guarantees in their written charters. What, 
then, was more natural than that, without 
speculation regarding new theories of the 
State, they should spontaneously combine 
their urgent needs with their established cus- 
toms, and produce the first written constitu- 
tions which the world had known? 

As an aid to the complete suppression of 
absolutism, the people of Massachusetts, in 
their State Constitution, adopted from 
Montesquieu, with unprecedented explicit- 

29 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

ness, the idea of the separation and distribu- 
tion of powers. "In the government of this 
Commonwealth/' runs the text of this docu- 
ment, "the legislative department shall 
never exercise the executive and judicial 
powers, or either of them ; the executive shall 
never exercise the legislative and judicial 
powers, or either of them; the judicial shall 
never exercise the legislative and executive 
powers, or either of them ; to the end that it 
may be a government of laws and not of 
men. jy Thus explicitly the fundamental 
law was hedged about with a triple security, 
each department of government being pow- 
erless for great harm without the conniv- 
ance of the others, and each being made the 
guardian of its own sphere of action. 

THE SEPARATION OF CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS 
\y INTERESTS 

But a still more radical departure from 
British and general usage at that time was 

30 



AMERICAN CONCEPTION OF THE STATE 

the complete separation of civil and re- 
ligious interests. Intolerance in matters of 
religion, even in the colonies, had been the ( 
rule. In no sphere of human relations had 
absolutism been more tenacious and persist- 
ent in enforcing unity of opinion. The ad- 
vantage of being able to influence men 
through their religious sentiments had never 
been neglected by any great autocratic ruler, 
and political power from the days of the 
Roman Empire had endeavored to use re- 
ligion as an instrument for imposing central 
authority. On the other hand, religion, bow- 
ing in reverence before a sovereignty su- 
perior to the authority of the State, had 
often been in revolt against its arbitrary 
rule. But how could a conception of the 
State founded on the inherent rights of the 
individual suppress or neglect the most sa- 
cred right of all? Accordingly, it was to 
America that "belongs the glory of having 

31 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

founded the first modern State which was 
really tolerant, based on the principle of 
taking the control of religious matters en- 
tirely out of the civil government"; and 
when the Constitution of the United States 
was adopted, it was ordained that Congress 
could not make any law respecting the es- 
tablishment of a religion, or interfering with 
the right of religious worship. 

THE REAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE 
CONSTITUTION 

We might here speak of other guaran- 
teed personal rights, which even the Gov- 
ernment itself has no power to take away; 
but it is sufficient to point out that it is in 
the National Constitution that these rights 
have their only permanent security. 

It is, therefore, of supreme importance 
that every American citizen should compre- 
hend the real and distinctive significance of 

32 



AMERICAN CONCEPTION OF THE STATE 

the American Constitution. It does not lie 
mainly in the frame of government and the 
mechanism of administration, but in the 
guarantee of individual rights and liberties. 
The doctrine of the French Revolution, bor- 
rowed from Rousseau, that the will of the 
people is absolute, and that any law desired 
by the majority is acceptable, was not a 
doctrine of the American Revolution; and 
it has never been entertained in the United 
States by any considerable body of thought- 
ful men. 1 

On the contrary, the doctrine of the Con- 
stitution is that the human individual pos- 
sesses certain inherent rights, including the 
security of life and liberty, and the preroga- 
tive of acquiring, possessing, and enjoying 

1 For a detailed discussion of the difference be- 
tween the principles of the American and the French 
revolutions, see the author's ''The People's Govern- 
ment/' pp. 41, 43, 106, 114. 

4 33 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

property, and that no government, however 
constituted, may justly take them away, or 
pass other than "just and equal laws," which 
apply to all citizens alike, without distinc- 
tion of race, class, or place of residence. 



HOSTILITY TO CONSTITUTIONAL GUARANTEES 

That a system like this should in time 
meet with opposition is not unnatural.: The 
egoistic impulses of human nature, which it 
is intended to check and frustrate, always 
have been, and always will be, hostile to it. ) 
Individuals and classes who desire to domi- 
nate, and demagogues who wish to rise to 
power by appealing to the sordid interests 
of a numerical majority, regardless of mi- 
nority rights, may be expected to use every 
means to break down the constitutional ob- 
structions to their designs ; and for that pur- 
pose make it an easy matter to destroy, one 

34 



AMERICAN CONCEPTION OF THE STATE 

by one, through constitutional amendments, 
the existing guarantees. 

There is always a tendency on the part 
of those who control, or expect to control, 
a government, to represent the State as a 
kind of independent and authoritative en- 
tity which possesses an unlimited power over 
the citizen. Men who would not have the 
insolence as individuals to demand of the 
more fortunate an equal partition of their 
possessions for their own benefit, have the 
impertinence to affirm that the State, as a 
supreme authority, should demand the sur- 
render to itself of all private property, in 
order that it may reapportion it in its own 
way. This is a new and subtle form of abso- 
lutism not less despotic than the royal pre- 
tensions which Democracy has resisted. Au- 
thoritative Democracy is, in truth, as capa- 
ble of arbitrary action, and of a total disre- 
gard of the rights of minorities, as any other 

35 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

form of autocratic government ; and with us, 
where monarchy is, of course, wholly out 
of the question, it is the one ever-present 
danger against which we need to guard. 
The distinctive feature of the American con- 
ception of public authority is that unlimited 
power should be accorded to no branch of 
government, and not even to a majority of 
the people. It was precisely the "tyranny 
of majorities" that the founders of our 
republic most feared, and it was the in- 
herent rights of the individual which they 
meant to preserve. They did not intend, 
after escaping from the arbitrary rule of 
the British Parliament, to jeopardize their 
liberties by creating another arbitrary gov- 
ernment. 

ILL-CONSIDERED PROPOSALS OF CHANGE 

Now that the Constitution has borne its 
fruits, and has made us a free, united, and 

36 



AMERICAN CONCEPTION OF THE STATE 

prosperous nation, composed of forty-eight 
self-governed States — the most important 
area of absolutely free intercourse in the 
world — bound together by a single funda- 
mental law, under the jurisdiction of a Su- 
preme Court, we are able to estimate how 
great should be our appreciation of this 
system. 

It is not necessary to state or to answer 
here the reasons offered by a new generation 
of theorists for changing our form of gov- 
ernment; but I venture the assertion that 
the ends contemplated by some of them are 
not compatible with what is historically the 
American conception of the State, and that 
they involve a complete repudiation of that 
"Americanism" which has been described. 
What conflicts of opinion upon this subject 
may yet arise, I do not know; but I appre- 
hend that we have entered upon a period 
when, if it is to be prolonged, all that is 

37 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

distinctively American will be compelled to 
(\ defend itself against very insidious and very 
persistent attacks that will appeal to pas- 
sions and interests which may seriously en- 
danger our political traditions. 

It is peculiarly unfortunate, at a time 
like the present, when the acceptance of 
just principles is vastly important, not only 
to the peace and order of our own country, 
but to the union of all nations upon some 
common ground, that new conflicts regard- 
ing the fundamental principles of justice 
should arise, that the authority of the courts 
and the value of the judicial system should 
be called in question, and that the whole 
conception of social relations should be 
thrown into the melting pot ; for it has been 
thought by many, and has been hoped by 
a still greater number, that the American 
conception of the State, yielding authority 
to great principles of equity and to the rule 

38 



AMERICAN CONCEPTION OF THE STATE 

of just and equal laws, might afford a basis 
for the reorganization of the family of na- 
tions, now torn by so many dissensions and 
plunged into a maelstrom of deadly con- 
flict. 

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE AMERICAN 
EXAMPLE 

In some respects our example as a nation 
has proved of great value to the world. As 
Edmund Burke said, it has taught England 
how to treat her colonies, by according free- 
dom and security to the individual under 
just and equal laws. Even at the time of 
our great struggle for individual rights, 
Lord Chatham declared: "If America 
should fall, she would fall like the strong 
man Samson; she would embrace the pillars 
of the State, and pull down the whole struc- 
ture with her." 

The American conception of the State 
39 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

has been contested at every point, but it has 
thus far stood the tests that have been ap- 
plied to it. It has furnished a fruitful ex- 
ample to other nations, and it is not too 
much to say that its development has created 
a new era in the history of the world; and 
yet the system into which it has grown has 
never been adopted in its totality by any 
other people. Other nations also are liv- 
ing under written constitutions, but in their 
attempts to imitate our system they have 
neglected to adopt the two really original 
and distinctive features of it, namely, our 1 ! 
renunciation of the absolute power of ma- | 
jorities over individual rights and liberties, jj 
and our idea of judicial authority as a means 
of preventing the overthrow of constitu- 
tional guarantees by mere majority legisla- 
tion. The result has been that in rendering 
the legislative power theoretically omnip- 
otent, without retaining the balancing ef- 

40 



■/7c &*jl T&fu»«t n 



AMERICAN CONCEPTION OF THE STATE 

feet of the judiciary, the imitators of the 
American system have made it possible for 
a faction, or even a single executive, to exer- 
cise a despotic domination; thus entailing 
frequent governmental changes and per- 
sonal dictatorships. 

ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS IN THE AMERICAN 
CONCEPTION 

But, in truth, success cannot be expected 
from any system of government unless the 
individuals who compose the State entertain 
respect for the personal rights and liberties 
of all. The moment a disposition prevails 
to deny these, or to impose a dominant will 
upon the community, the system of guaran- 
tees is undermined; and it is in its guaran- 
tees of personal liberty that the American 
conception consists. Local autonomy in all 
local matters, popular representation in 
State and National affairs, the federation 

41 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

of independent communities, a body of un- 
alterable principles accepted iri a funda- 
mental law, judicial decision in the settle- 
ment of difference's -these are essential ele- 
ments in the American conception of the 
State. 

Can we maintain it? And can we hope 
that it may furnish suggestions for the 
peaceful organization of other nations and 
groups of nations? 

In time, perhaps, the example of the 
American Union, if it continues to accom- 
plish the purposes for which it was designed ; 
if in spite of disruptive and disintegrating 
tendencies it shows by its stability, unity, 
coherence, and loyalty to just principles 
embodied in a fundamental law, that it can 
endure, it may produce the conviction that 1 
here is, in fact, the solution of the problem 
of a just, pacific, and effective world organ- 
ization. 

42 



r AMERICAN CONCEPTION OF THE STATE 

OBSTACLES TO WORLD ORGANIZATION 

But even if that conviction should become 
general, there will still remain the dynastic 
interests, the racial antagonisms, the tradi- 
tional hostilities, the bitter memories, the 
industrial and commercial rivalries, and, 
worst of all, the mutual fear and distrust of 
the nations, which have written such a san- 
guinary and humiliating commentary on the 
perversity and blindness of human nature, 
and revealed the terrific struggle necessary 
to maintain a national existence in their 
presence. 

Until a conception of the nature, the end, 
the authority, and the limits of the State, 
different from that which seems to be mani- 
fested in the conflict which is now agoniz- 
ing the world, prevails, there will inev- 
itably linger in our minds an undertone 
of sadness, of doubt, and of deep distress, 

43 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

as we contemplate the future of mankind. 
It is only as men are able and willing to 
adopt fundamental principles of justice, of 
equity, of moderation, and of self-restraint ; 
to abide by them, to reverence them, to love 
them, and to be prepared, if necessary, to 
die for them, that any light falls upon that 
shadowed pathway. 

THE AMERICAN CONCEPTION AND THE FUTURE 

It is not a time for pride, exultation, 
and self-glorification, that we are Ameri- 
cans. Least of all is it a time for self- 
righteousness or for dogmatic utterances. 
It is rather a time for gratitude and thank- 
fulness that, in shaping the form of our 
government, in securing firm guarantees 
of our inherent rights, in establishing the 
traditions of our people, our fathers builded 
more wisely than they knew, in placing the 

44 



AMERICAN CONCEPTION OF THE STATE 

emphasis upon the happiness and security 
of the Citizen, and not upon the power and 
glory of the State. 

Into this heritage has passed the best re- 
sults of human experience; but there has 
passed also a spirit of devotion to ideals 
that had never before been realized ; a faith 
in the possibilities of man based on faith 
in a Creative Power working in the world. 
The end is not yet. There is still uplifting 
power in a faith like that of our fathers. 

The stars indeed are old, but life is young, 
That in Earth's ruddy morningtime first 

sung 
Its salutation to the radiant dawn; 
The yesterday of life seems hardly gone. 

So new is Man's still unrecorded day, 
Whose noon is yet, perchance, so far away 
That his endeavors, only just begun, 
May change the scene before the setting sun. 

45 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

No past, but some far future, holds the key 
To that firm door that bars eternity; 
Its secrets sleep in aims still unfulfilled, 
In deeds undone, but yet not all unwilled. 

So turn we once again to our rude task; 
A little more of life is all we ask; 
Spread all the canvas, every sail unfurled, 
To help complete this still unfinished world! 






II 

THE CRISIS IN AMERICAN 
CONSTITUTIONALISM 



II 

THE CRISIS IN AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONALISM 

The severest test which the American con- 
ception of the State has ever been called 
upon to endure was occasioned by circum- 
stances connected with the Civil War, but 
it did not involve a denial of the funda- 
mental principles upon which American 
constitutionalism is based. It consisted, on 
the contrary, merely in a difference of docu- 
mentary interpretation. Had the Federal 
Constitution produced a nation, or only a 
confederation? That was the question upon 
which the North and the South disagreed. 

At present, however, we are confronted 
by a different and a far more radical ques- 
tion, namely : Does the American conception 
of the State embody the best principles of 
5 49 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS > 

government, or are we to look for others? 

Thoughtful men in all countries are, no 
doubt, generally united in the conviction 
that constitutional government, in some 
form, is desirable, and embodies the most 
perfect method of regulating human affairs 
ever conceived by man. 

With regard to the attainability and per- 
manence of this ideal, however, opinions dif- 
fer widely. Most men agree that certain 
peoples are not ripe for it. Others con- 
sider it necessary to combine with it some 
vestige of absolutism, as a means of rescu- 
ing society from the anarchy that would 
follow upon its possible failure. Still others 
openly oppose it, because, for various rea- 
sons, it is their personal interest to do so. 

THE FRIENDS AND THE ENEMIES OF 
CONSTITUTIONALISM 

The dangers to the American conception 
of constitutional government do not arise 

50 



Crisis in constitutionalism 

from the open opposition of its enemies, for 
in the field of free debate it is abundantly 
able to defend itself. Its real foes — and 
they are not a few — are those who do not 
avowedly attack or resist it ; but who, while 
professing to be its friends, and even its 
advocates, secretly repudiate or intention- 
ally pervert its fundamental principles. 

In contrast with the political absolutism 
which it was intended to destroy, and which 
it has endeavored to supersede, American 
constitutional government is based upon the 
principle of equal guarantees for the rights 
of all citizens, without distinction of per- 
sons or classes, under the protection of co- 
ordinate and distributed powers, exercised 
by public officers freely chosen by the peo- 
ple, and revocable after fixed periods of 
office. Recognizing life, personal liberty, 
and property as elements of inalienable 
right, the American system of government 

51 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

aims to guard these from every form of 
violation. 

The mere statement of the meaning of 
that system plainly indicates who are its 
natural enemies. These include all those 
who, in any form whatever, desire to make 
the State their private servant, and through 
control of the public powers use it to serve 
their own personal or class interests at the 
expense of others. 

The division of men into friends and ene- 
mies of the American idea of constitutional 
government is based upon the attitude they 
assume toward its fundamental principle. 
This principle being the existence of equal 
and adequate guarantees, by which the life, 
the personal liberty, and the property of 
every citizen are rendered inviolate, 
every person and every organization that 
aims by means of exceptional legislation to 
secure special advantages to the detriment 

52 



CRISIS IN CONSTITUTIONALISM 

of others must be classed as an enemy of 
the American system, which — although not 
a guarantee of equal conditions, which is 
impossible — is essentially a guarantee of 
equal rights. 



THE MEANS OF GUARANTEEING EQUALITY 

The means by which the fathers of con- 
stitutional government in the United States 
intended to obtain and perpetuate this guar- 
antee were threefold: 

First of all, the "inalienable rights" of all 
citizens were to be secured by a fundamental 
law which placed them beyond the reach of 
unequal legislation or executive violence. 
What the American colonists had suffered 
from was the exercise of absolute and arbi- 
trary- authority. This they intended to end ; 
and, in order to do so, they aimed to place 
the opportunity of encroachment upon cer- 

53 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

tain personal rights permanently beyond the 
power of all legislatures and executives. In 
brief, legislative bodies and executive of- 
ficers were themselves made subject to the 
restrictions of law; and no man was to be 
judged except in accordance with it. Life, 
liberty, and property were not to be taken 
away without a day in court, in the presence 
of responsible authorities acting under the 
obligations of equal laws. 

The second security afforded was a form 
of government in which public powers were 
so distributed that no public officer could 
commit an act of oppression without render- 
ing himself responsible for his action. The 
people, through their representatives, could 
make new laws; but even the people could 
make no laws which encroached upon the 
rights already sacredly guarded by the fun- 
damental law. The executive was to see 
that the law was executed, but he himself 

54 



CRISIS IN CONSTITUTIONALISM 

was bound by it and could act only in ac- 
cordance with it. The judiciary was to de- 
cide what the law is, but it also was obliged 
to respect and maintain the guarantees 
which the fundamental law provided. 

Finally, the people, standing in the place 
of the sovereign, and exercising sovereign 
power, did what no other sovereign had ever 
before voluntarily done in the history of 
the world — they freely and formally re- 
nounced the power to impose their personal 
arbitrary will upon the organs of govern- 
ment or upon one another. They confided 
to the operation of the system they had de- 
vised and created the legislative, executive, 
and judicial functions necessary to the ap- 
plication of justice, subject to their ap- 
proval or reprobation by means already pro- 
vided for in that system. 

Thus absolutism in every form was in- 
tended to be excluded from government, 

55 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

which aimed to be a system of just laws and 
principles in place of mere arbitrary will 
actuated by caprice, prejudice, malignity, 
or self-interest. 

It is easy to see how this system could 
be covertly attacked by those who, con- 
sciously or unconsciously, were inspired by 
motives for subverting it, 

THE CONSTITUTION AS A BAR TO DEMAGOGISM 

The first method of attack is through the 
hasty alteration of the fundamental law it- 
self. Believing in the approximate perfec- 
tion of our system, the people of the United 
States have, in general, desired to maintain 
the stability of the Constitution, and so far 
it has been subjected to very little change. 
Being essentially a restriction of arbitrary 
power, it presents a firm barrier to the aims 
of those who seek to derive private advan- 

56 



CRISIS IN CONSTITUTIONALISM 

tage through the control of the State. As 
long as it remains intact there exists a legal 
obstacle to depredation. No mere dema- 
gogue ever has loved, or ever will love, the 
Constitution; for it is a restraint upon per- 
sonal ambition and personal interests. He 
would much prefer to substitute for it the 
unrestrained "will of the people," by which 
he understands assent to his own proposals. 
With seductive simplicity he blandly asks, 
"What is the Constitution between friends?" 
The analogy between the influence of a 
demagogue and the power of a despot is 
forcibly emphasized by Aristotle. Distin- 
guishing between the type of democracy in 
which the law is supreme and that in which 
the temporary popular will shows no regard 
for established law, he says: "The latter 
state of things occurs when the government 
is administered by plebiscite, or popular 
vote, and not according to laws, and it is 

57 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

produced by the influence of the dema- 
gogues. In democracies administered ac- 
cording to law there are no demagogues; 
but where the laws are not supreme, dema- 
gogues arise. For the people become, as it 
were, a compound monarch, each individual 
being only invested with power as a mem- 
ber of the sovereign body; and a people of 
this sort, as if they were a monarch, seek 
to exercise a monarchical power, in order 
that they may not be governed by the law, 
and they assume tli3 character of a despot; 
wherefore flatterers are in honor with them. 
A democracy of this sort is analogous to a 
tyranny or despotism among monarchies." 
Pointing out that the power of dema- 
gogues increases as the people can be dis- 
posed to disregard the established law and 
the magistrates who enforce it, he concludes : 
"Accordingly, it seems to have been justly 
said, that a democracy of this sort is not 

58 



CRISIS IN CONSTITUTIONALISM 

entitled to the name of a constitution; for 
where the laws are not supreme, there is 
no constitution. In order that there should 
be a constitution, it is necessary that the 
government should be administered accord- 
ing to the laws, and that the magistrates and 
constituted authorities should decide in the 
individual cases respecting the application 
of them." 

CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGES 

Undoubtedly, any inflexible obstacle to 
a transitory popular impulse can at times 
be made to appear too rigid; but it is pre- 
cisely this clear and definite obstruction to 
impulsive and ill-considered action which 
constitutional guarantees are intended to 
impose. It is always a dangerous moment 
for the liberties of a people when it is pro- 
posed to substitute for the deliberately es- 
tablished reasonableness of a constitutional 

59 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

provision the impromptu and uncontrolled 
impulses of the moment, or to open the way, 
without serious reflection and debate, for 
mere political experiments. 

It may be necessary with the emergence 
of new conditions to change in certain par- 
ticulars constitutional provisions which fail 
to serve the purpose for which they were 
intended; but no real friend of constitu- 
tional government can wish to facilitate or 
multiply amendments without a deliberate 
and cautious consideration of all their pos- 
sible effects. 

Two recent constitutional changes have 
been urged and passively accepted by the 
people of the United States. The election 
of the United States senators by legisla- 
tive bodies had sometimes been attended 
with corruption, and this led to a demand 
for popular nominations and elections. In 
order to lower import duties, an income 

60 



CRISIS IN CONSTITUTIONALISM 

tax — hitherto left to the several States, 
which can levy no import taxes — had been 
urged as a means of meeting the expenses 
of the Federal Government. To accom- 
plish this a constitutional change was neces- 
sary, since the Constitution as adopted re- 
quired the apportionment of direct taxes 
among the States, and this method was not 
deemed practicable. It is, perhaps, too early 
to demonstrate the full results of these 
changes; and it remains to be seen how the 
people, if they could not succeed in choos- 
ing trustworthy legislators from among 
their own immediate neighbors, will be able 
to select worthier senators from among per- 
sons whom they know chiefly through news- 
paper representations, many of which are 
paid advertisements; nor is it certain that 
the power to impose a graduated income 
tax, without any kind of restriction, may 
not eventually become the instrument of 

61 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

mere class and sectional legislation. It will, 
of course, be gratifying if these two ex- 
periments result in an elevation of political 
morals or in greater social equity, but it is 
not yet certain that these results will be 
attained. 

UNCONSTITUTIONAL ENCROACHMENTS 

A second method of attack upon the Fed- 
eral Constitution is through the encroach- 
ment of one or more of the three divisions 
of public power upon the legitimate do- 
main of the others. The American con- 
ception of government has always laid stress 
upon the balance of the public powers, 
which is intended to limit the excesses of 
all. When, however, we consider the pos- 
sible effect of concentrating power in one 
man personally both to urge and to veto 
new legislation, backed with the enormous 
influence of Federal patronage, the employ- 

62 



CRISIS IN CONSTITUTIONALISM 

merit of which may be easily concealed be- 
hind a mask of apparently beneficent legis- 
lation, we are confronted with the nearest 
approach to absolute power now to be found 
in any constitutional government in the 
world. In defense of this centralization of 
authority it may be said that a President 
of the United States is responsible to the 
country, and particularly to his party, for 
the fulfillment of promises made in the plat- 
form of the party that elected him, and this is 
true; but executive urgency and executive 
prohibition have not always been exercised 
exclusively with the purpose of fulfilling 
party promises, but sometimes merely upon 
the personal initiative of the executive him- 
self, who has thereby assumed the exercise 
of a prerogative which, however pleasing it 
may be to those who profit by its results, 
when considered from a constitutional point 
of view is certainly of questionable pro- 

63 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

priety if not of doubtful legality. Fidelity 
in urging the fulfillment of previously made 
party promises and personal ballons d'essai, 
sent up for electoral purposes without re- 
gard to the previously determined policies 
of the party or even in contradiction to 
them, are two entirely different methods of 
official procedure. The business of a Presi- 
dent is to execute the laws and urge the ful- 
fillment of party pledges, but it is not his 
prerogative to revolutionize the govern- 
ment. 

UNCONSTITUTIONAL LEGISLATION 

But encroachments upon constitutional 
limitations by the executive are not more 
dangerous than those of a legislative origin. 
For these latter there is, it is true, always 
the plausible excuse that they spring more 
directly from the expressed will of the peo- 
ple, especially when the legislators have 

64 



CRISIS IN CONSTITUTIONALISM 

received a general mandate from this source. 
It is, however, a perversion of reasoning to 
maintain that their mandate ever includes 
an instruction to disregard the spirit of the 
Constitution, or to strain it to the breaking 
point. It is therefore essential that the ju- 
diciary, whose function it is to apply the 
fundamental law, be free, pure, and faithful 
in its interpretation of it. It is equally im- 
portant that it should have the confidence 
and support of the people. Nothing could 
so fatally affect the foundations of consti- 
tutional government as a loss of confidence 
on the part of the people in the purity, fidel- 
ity, and intelligence of the judiciary. By 
every means that will leave it free and re- 
sponsible it should be placed and kept upon 
the highest plane of honor and authority, 
for it is by its essential nature the guardian 
of our guarantees of liberty. 



65 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 
THE RENUNCIATION OF ARBITRARY POWER 

There is a third and far more insidious 
form of attack upon constitutional govern- 
ment which should not escape observation. 
It is the disposition to withdraw and annul 
that act of popular renunciation of each in 
the interest of all upon which the success 
of the American system of constitutional 
government is based. It is important that 
this point should be made clear, for it con- 
tains the chief justification for speaking of 
a "crisis" in American constitutionalism. 

Attention has been called to the fact that 
the third step in the development of the 
Constitution of the United States was the 
voluntary surrender of arbitrary power by 
the sovereign people. This was not an abdi- 
cation of power by the people as a whole 
in the interest of a majority, but a deter- 
mination that absolutism in every form 

66 



CRISIS IN CONSTITUTIONALISM 

should be abolished altogether ; and that even 
the majority should be denied the exercise 
of arbitrary power. It was the complete 
surrender of will to reason, of private inter- 
est to public good, of the individual to the 
State as the institution of organized justice. 
The greatest present danger to constitu- 
tional government in the United States is 
the possible revocation of this splendid sac- 
rifice of personal advantage to the common 
well-being; for there are indications that the 
agreement of the people not to attempt an 
act of conquest upon one another, but to live 
on terms of equality under just laws, may 
be revoked. 

RESULTS OF THE SPIRIT OF DOMINATION 

It is worthy of observation that wherever 
the renunciation of arbitrary power has not 
been made, constitutional government has 

67 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

proved an abject failure. If we consider the 
revolutions that have stained with blood and 
ruined the economic life of several of our 
sister republics on this continent, we shall 
find ample and striking illustrations of this 
assertion. They, like ourselves, have had a 
fundamental law, often expressed in most 
irreproachable language, and a frame of 
government in which the division of powers 
is theoretically accepted. In fact, however, 
these elements of constitutional organization 
have not been treated as realities. Personal 
ambition, conspiracy, and revolution have 
defied the system, and frequently destroyed 
it. Instead of devoting themselves to the 
State and making a religion of vital patriot- 
ism — that is, of consecration to the State as 
the institution of order and justice — these 
unfortunate republicans have attached them- 
selves to factions, each seeking to dominate 
by force the others, and thus creating a scene 

68 



CRISIS IN CONSTITUTIONALISM 

of constant incertitude, turmoil, lawlessness, 
and rapine. 

We have at the present moment a start- 
ling example of this assertion of arbitrary 
will and repudiation of public authority in 
our nearest neighbor to the south. Every- 
one who personally knows the Mexican 
statesmen of the highest type appreciates 
their learning, their culture, and their some- 
times great executive ability. What is lack- 
ing to that country? It is the spirit of per- 
sonal renunciation of arbitrary power in the 
interest of the public well-being. Rich in 
natural resources, situated in a most favor- 
able geographical environment, and not 
wanting in capable men, Mexico is doomed 
to stagnation, poverty, and discredit because 
it is the prey of rival forces within the State, 
each claiming the right to rule, each deter- 
mined to destroy the others. 



69 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 
THE FRUITS OF GOVERNMENT BY LAW 

Let us not lose the lesson of this impres- 
sive illustration of the unwillingness of men 
to accept the authority of principles because 
we ourselves are not at present harassed by 
banditti and visibly divided by opposing 
powers within the State. It is opportune 
for us to ask ourselves why we are not sub- 
jected to this anarchy, and why we enjoy 
a high degree of peace, order, and justice in 
our own republic, which is based on the 
same fundamental ideas as that of our un- 
fortunate neighbors? 

The answer to this question is evident to 
every thoughtful observer. We have thus 
far been able to maintain respect for our 
Constitution and our judiciary. We have, 
in the interest of the public peace, renounced 
the primitive right of personal self-defense. 
We have differences, but we endeavor, for 

70 



CRISIS IN CONSTITUTIONALISM 

the most part, to settle them by an appeal 
to the law and to the courts. We have thus 
far maintained the renunciation of arbitrary 
power which has made our government a 
success where others have failed, and we 
have had, and are having, our reward. 

THE DANGER OF CLASS CONTROL 

Will this condition always continue? 
There is more than one sign that, unless we 
are on our guard, it will not. The dangers 
arising from the first and second forms of 
attack on constitutional government are not 
unworthy of attention, but they are insig- 
nificant in comparison with the third; for 
further alterations cannot be made in the 
Constitution of the United States without 
fresh consideration by the people, and a mis- 
use of power by the legislative and execu- 
tive, or even by the judicial authorities is 

71 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

at least subject to correction. But the third 
form of attack is of a different nature. It 
results from a scheme of social transforma- 
tion that may affect constitutionalism at its 
source through a perversion of the minds of 
the people. 

For a long time the chief danger to con- 
stitutionalism in our country was the men- 
ace of conflict between the States. That 
peril seems now to have passed, for the 
interests of the States in the Union are 
so nearly identical and their populations 
are so nearly homogeneous that a di- 
vergence of purposes sufficiently wide to 
lead to armed conflict is altogether im- 
probable. 

But there is another source of antagonism 
which would have an equally disastrous ef- 
fect upon constitutional government, the t 
possibility of which is not entirely excluded 
from consideration. 

72 



CRISIS IN CONSTITUTIONALISM 

We have in recent years developed in the 
United States a spirit of class antagonism 
which is peculiarly disquieting. In stating 
this point it is not at all necessary to cast 
the blame on any particular stratum of so- 
ciety, and a careful analysis might distribute 
responsibility in a manner that would not be 
welcome in quite opposite quarters. The 
one undeniable fact is that this antagonism 
exists and has been stimulated by political 
ambitions that have found their advantage 
in creating unrest and in deepening the hos- 
tility of certain conditions of life toward 
others. 

The peril of the situation is that it does 
not consist merely in opposing personal sen- 
timents entertained by isolated individuals, 
but it aims to control the State by massing 
its forces in powerful organizations with 
the purpose of changing the laws, and even 
the Constitution, in the interest of special 

73 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

classes. This is the open repudiation of all 
that is understood by "Americanism." 



THE ATTACKS UPON THE CONSTITUTION 

Books have recently been written with the 
endeavor to make it appear that the Con- 
stitution of the United States is an antiquat- 
ed eighteenth-century construction, devised 
solely in the interest of a property-possess- 
ing class, and is at present an anachronism. 
For the first time since it was adopted the 
Constitution has within very recent years 
been treated with open disrespect. What is 
the reason for this opposition? It is that 
the Constitution presents an obvious bar- 
rier to the designs of those who oppose it. 
If we seek the actuating principle of this 
opposition, we find it in the doctrine that the 
unregulated and changeable will of the ma- 
jority is a more desirable form of authority 

74 



CRISIS IN CONSTITUTIONALISM 

than deliberately accepted principles of gov- 
ernment sanctioned by general assent and 
tried and tested by experience. 

Should this tendency become further ac- 
centuated by combinations of power able 
eventually to control the State in their own 
interest, we should find ourselves in a posi- 
tion not dissimilar to that in which Mexico 
is placed today — divided into hostile fac- 
tions, one class plundered by another, and 
the country utterly powerless to defend its 
interests or maintain its dignity in the field 
of international relations. 

THE DRIFT OF SOCIAL FORCES 

In considering the drift of the social forces 
now in operation, one is struck by the di- 
minished respect for law. This is, no doubt, 
in part owing to the changed conception of 
the source of legal authority. When men 

75 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

sincerely believed in "inalienable rights" and 
conceived of law as the guardian of those 
rights, it was esteemed worthy of a senti- 
ment of reverence. At present the impor- 
tation of a conception of law as the decree 
of a dominating will, without relation to fun- 
damental rights — which are alleged to have 
no demonstrable existence — has made it dif- 
ficult to respect law in and for itself. If, 
after all, it is merely arbitrary; if it pro- 
ceeds from no mora] principle; if, in short, 
it is the expression of mere will and not of 
reason ; it is difficult, it is even unreasonable, 
to demand that it be respected. 

It is necessary in the life of every nation 
that from time to time it be called upon to 
reflect upon the principles that underlie its 
existence. The present generation until now 
has been confronted with no great national 
crisis that has called for such reflection. The 
shock that has been given to the party sys- 

76 



CRISIS IN CONSTITUTIONALISM 

tern of government in the United States 
may prove to be such a crisis. We have 
suddenly been brought face to face with the 
question: What is our political future to be? 
It is for the reason and the conscience of 
the people to answer, but it remains to be 
determined on what lines the answer is to 
be given. 

THE NEEDED REVIVAL OF AMERICANISM 

The only means of preventing the ulti- 
mate collapse of constitutionalism as con- 
ceived by the founders of this republic, and 
the only remedy if this calamity is in some 
degree already upon us, is a firm determina- 
tion on the part of the people that arbitrary 
power in every form must be renounced; 
that life, liberty, and property shall still 
enjoy protection against any form of abso- 
lutism that may be asserted within the State. 

77 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

To apply this remedy the country needs 
two things: first, to consider seriously the 
drift of the social forces now operating 
among us, with a view to forming a clear 
conception of the degree in which we are 
adhering to or departing from the spirit 
of conformity to just and equal laws; and, 
second, an active movement on the part of 
thoughtful citizens to oppose anti-constitu- 
tional tendencies. 



PRINCIPLES VERSUS PERSONALITIES 

Naturally, in moments of indecision men 
look for leaders, but unless they look also 
for principles they look in vain. The choice 
must be made between experiment and ex- 
perience, between arbitrary decisions and 
fundamental principles ; in a word, between 
political anarchy and constitutional govern- 
ment. 

78 



CRISIS IN CONSTITUTIONALISM 

The one thing most certain is that if we 
are to preserve and justify constitutional 
government, we must be ever ready to de- 
fend it. If we are to defend it, all who be- 
lieve in it must act together. To many 
minds it seems at this moment the one over- 
mastering issue. When principles have been 
settled men have always been found to ren- 
der them effective. What we need at pres- 
ent is not so much leaders as a determi- 
nation to follow no one not guided by 
the principles by which we should be led, 
and which we should then insist upon hav- 
ing applied in practice. In seeking for 
these we cannot do better than to revert to 
the great doctrines of our fathers, which, in 
the midst of revolutions on every side, have 
brought us to great power as a nation, 
and which, if faithfully applied, will con- 
tinue to give us great prosperity as a 
people. 

79 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

THE ONLY ROCK OF SALVATION 

If, amidst the dissolution of party ties, 
which has brought home to us the problem 
of our political future, we are able to rally 
about the one rock of salvation, the rights 
of the individual citizen as guaranteed by 
the Constitution, the atmosphere will clear. 
We shall see that a State cannot be built 
upon private interests of any kind, and that 
our prosperity as a republic consists in the 
readiness to renounce the control of the 
State for our own advantage, by giving to 
each individual not only full liberty to ex- 
ercise and develop all his powers in his own 
way, but protection in preserving that lib- 
erty by preventing the public powers from 
falling under the domination of any class 
or combination of men having for its ob- 
ject the subjection of others to their private 
will. 

80 



CRISIS IN CONSTITUTIONALISM 

THE NEED OF ORGANIZATION 

Considered individually, the vast majority 
of the citizens of the United States are 
firmly convinced of the excellence of their 
system of government. Collectively, they 
act almost exclusively through political or- 
ganizations. If, however, these seek success 
in a race for radicalism, each trying to outdo 
the other in promoting private interests for 
the purpose of carrying elections, who can 
be depended upon to look after the con- 
servation of the constitutional guarantees? 

In the days of our Civil War much aid 
was afforded to the cause of preserving the 
Union by the formation of clubs composed 
of citizens who perceived in that movement 
the great issue of the hour. Is it not possible 
that the time has come when a similar inter- 
est in the preservation of constitutional gov- 
ernment, through the cultivation of respect 
7 81 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

for the spirit of the Constitution, may be 
desirable and even necessary? 1 

There are overwhelming proofs that we 
are at present passing through a crisis in 
which the great structure of liberty and jus- 
tice erected by our fathers is being insidi- 
ously undermined; not in the interest of 
the people, of whose rights it is the only 
guarantee, but in the interest of private pow- 
ers within the State, which, for purposes of 
their own, wish to dominate it and employ 
it as the instrument of their designs. 

1 Since these words were written, and partly in 
consequence of them, a society has been formed call- 
ing itself "The National Association for Constitu- 
tional Government, ,, having its headquarters at 
Washington, D. C, Colorado Building. This and 
the following chapter were first published in the 
North American Review, and are reprinted here by 
the permission of the editor. 



Ill 

TAKING SOUNDINGS 



Ill 

TAKING SOUNDINGS 

No one familiar with political develop- 
ments in the United States in the last ten 
years ean doubt that radical changes have 
occurred in the ideas and sentiments of a 
considerable portion of the American peo- 
ple. It has been felt in many quarters that 
something is wrong in the adjustment of 
our system of government to our social 
needs. It was, perhaps, natural, and even 
inevitable, that the weight of criticism 
should fall upon the American system rather 
than upon the abuses of it; leading to the 
hasty conclusion that the form of govern- 
ment had been outgrown, and that radical 
revision had become necessary. 

The passion for speed, which is charac- 
85 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

teristic of our people, did not fail to exer- 
cise its influence upon the process of popu- 
lar thinking; with the result that spontane- 
ous impulses and imperfect analyses have 
in a great degree been substituted for de- 
fensible fundamental principles. 



THE REVOLT AGAINST FIXED PRINCIPLES 

In the period when our government was 
established it was the common conviction 
that there are some individual and personal 
rights so clear, so undeniable, and so worthy 
of protection that they should receive the 
most trustworthy guarantees that could pos- 
sibly be accorded to them. In this spirit 
the early State Constitutions were con- 
ceived, and later the Federal Constitution, 
as finally agreed upon, the people insisting 
upon the explicit recognition of these rights 
in their fundamental law. By this they 

86 



TAKING SOUNDINGS 

meant to set limits to every form of govern- 
mental power which might ever tend to in- 
vade these rights. Thus, for the first time 
in the history of the world, life, liberty, and 
property were intended to be placed under 
the protection of a law so inclusive that it 
would in the future bind all executives, all 
legislatures, and all courts. 

A singular example of hasty and super- 
ficial thinking is to be found in the disposi- 
tion to belittle the importance of the great 
principles of "Law," as compared with the 
alleged exigencies of "Life"; as if there were 
some kind of contradiction or incompatibil- 
ity between them. Thus, a writer who has 
been esteemed as a high authority in the 
science of government, has suggested, for 
the purposes of an electoral campaign, and 
with an evident intention of disparagement, 
that "the Constitution of the United States 
has been made under the dominion of the 

87 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

Newtonian theory"; and adds that the men 
of that period "represent Congress, the Ju- 
diciary, and the President as a sort of imi- 
tation of the solar system." "The Consti- 
tution," he concludes, "was founded on the 
law of gravitation," which he considers 
purely mechanical, and proceeds to assure 
us that, under the regime of "New Free- 
dom" which he promised to establish, gov- 
ernment, which is "a living thing," and not a 
mere machine such as the Constitution con- 
structed, "is accountable to Darwin, not to 
Newton." In other words, such antiquated 
principles as the "law of gravitation," which 
were deemed of importance by the founders 
of the American government, are now to be 
superseded by doctrines analogous to the 
less exact processes of biological speculation, 
on the ground that "government is a living 
thing." 



88 



TAKING SOUNDINGS 

THE ESSENTIAL PERMANENCE OF LAW 

There is aptness in this simile; but it 
hardly justifies the inference that, since 
"government is a living thing," "it is ac- 
countable to Darwin, not to Newton." 
Whatever the biologic laws may be — if in- 
deed it is even possible to state them clearly 
— they have not superseded or rendered 
superfluous the law of gravitation. All 
living organisms that ever were, are, or are 
to be, have been and will be subject to it; 
and, however varied, fecund, and marvelous 
the process of natural evolution may prove 
to be, we shall forever be obliged to go back 
to Newton and his "Principia" for an intelli- 
gible theory of the universe. In like man- 
ner, we shall be compelled to return to the 
great principles of human justice underly- 
ing the Constitution for a defensible theory 
of the State. We may have changed, but 

89 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

the law of gravitation still controls our foot- 
steps; society may have changed, but the 
great principles of ethics are its only sure 
foundation; our ideas may have changed, 
but the laws of logic, by which alone they 
may be consistently coordinated, still re- 
main unaltered. 

THE SUBSTITUTION OF EXPERIMENT FOR 
EXPERIENCE 

Nevertheless, the suggestion that the 
present is a Darwinian rather than a New- 
tonian age is one full of illumination; but 
this notion does not warrant us in believing 
that Nature has changed her laws, or that 
these laws are changeable. It means simply 
that in our minds the process of change is 
receiving a degree of attention greater than 
in the past, and that by centering our 
thought upon the idea of transformation it- 
self we may be losing sight both of the con- 

90 



TAKING SOUNDINGS 

ditions upon which beneficial changes may 
depend and the results that may follow from 
our insistence upon radical action. Al- 
though it is true that we live in an age 
when the evolutionary process has taken the 
foremost place in our thoughts, it is im- 
portant to remember that, so far as we know 
anything about it, it has never been a rapid 
process, and, in the Darwinian sense at 
least, has been an unconscious adjustment 
to natural conditions rather than a swift 
and purposeful transformation. 

It is precisely here that the substitution 
of experiment for experience presents grave 
dangers. If we truly wish to be wise, or — 
should that be more agreeable — if we wish 
to be rigorously scientific, what we should 
be most concerned about is to know pre- 
cisely why and how our existing political in- 
stitutions came into being, rather than to 
engage in the exploitation of extemporized 

91 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

schemes for destroying them. In our coun- 
try the danger of erring in this matter is 
greater than in almost any other, for the 
reason that we have less of the historic sense 
and more of the spirit of initiative than any 
other people. In private matters, and even 
in private associative action, this may be of 
little consequence; for failure to justify our 
theories by achievements involves nothing 
more serious than private loss or disappoint- 
ment. In public matters, however, the sub- 
stitution of impulses for deliberate reflec- 
tion, of unrestrained action for measured 
powers, and of improvised schemes for set- 
tled principles becomes a danger of incal- 
culable magnitude. 

REASON VERSUS EMOTION 

Those of us who distinguish between rea- 
son and emotion, between reflection and im- 

92 



TAKING SOUNDINGS 

pulse, between world experience and spas- 
modic action, believe that a fundamental law 
forbidding class, sectional, and inspirational 
legislation is the indispensable guarantee of 
personal liberty and the necessary basis of 
true social justice. We are opposed, openly 
and fearlessly, to those who, for private or 
alleged public motives, would ruthlessly 
sweep it away. We are of the opinion that 
a non-Newtonian and otherwise undisci- 
plined state of mind is a dangerous one for 
the well-being of the republic. We freely 
admit that there are fewer purely personal 
motives for defending the work of the past 
than there are for initiating new and ill- 
considered schemes of public action. We do 
not forget that novelty pleases, and that con- 
ditions imposed by the past are often felt 
to be at fault when our misfortunes are in 
reality to be attributed to other causes. We 
are aware that those who seek the support 

93 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

and admiration of their fellow-citizens find 
it to their advantage to offer to them a 
Promised Land flowing with milk and 
honey. We realize also that the smug con- 
tentment of those who feel themselves be- 
yond the reach of personal harm, and who 
say in their souls, "After us the deluge," 
constitutes an absolutely negligible quan- 
tity either for promoting needed reforms or 
resisting public evils. It is from the ethi- 
cally minded and public-spirited men and 
women of the country, alone, that any inter- 
est in such questions is to be expected, or 
upon whom any dependence for unselfish 
action can be placed. And yet it is worth 
while to take soundings, and to point out 
to those who have an open mind the perils 
by which we are confronted, and especially 
to leave on record for the future the fact that 
blindness and inertness were not universal 
in the period of demolition, if such a period 

94 



TAKING SOUNDINGS 

shall follow, when the great work of our 
fathers is to be undone. It may be, after 
all, when public attention is turned to the 
facts, that the efforts of our time to wipe 
out and utterly efface the distinction be- 
tween a fundamental law and ordinary leg- 
islation, and to place absolute and unlimited 
power in the hands of legislative majorities 
— or even, perchance, in the hands of popu- 
lar minorities afforded control by the divi- 
sion of their fellow-citizens over minor mat- 
ters — may yet be happily averted. But this 
cannot be, unless the danger is realized and 
united action is substituted for indifference. 

NO DENIAL OF OPPOSITION TO THE 
CONSTITUTION 

The first and most important reflection 
to occupy our attention here is the fact that, 
in the observations of the press and in the 
private letters that have come to the writer 

95 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

regarding an article published by him en- 
titled "The Crisis in Constitutionalism," 
no one has denied that there is a widespread 
disposition to render easier the modification 
of the Constitution of the United States; 
yet no one has cited a single social reform 
worthy of serious consideration that neces- 
sitates a change in our fundamental law, 
or which cannot be carried into effect with- 
out a change. In this case the process of 
evolution is sought to be facilitated solely 
for its own sake. In brief, it is urged that 
we should change our fundamental law, sim- 
ply because it is a fundamental law, which 
may some time stand in the way of what 
a legislative majority may yet be impelled 
to do. 

VAGUENESS OF THE OPPOSITION 

What is the nature of this contemplated 
legislation that finds itself obstructed by 

96 



TAKING SOUNDINGS 

the Constitution? Strictly speaking, it is 
as yet too much in the state of fermentation 
to declare itself distinctly. If some of the 
purposes in view were clearly articulated, 
the radical nature of this legislation would 
be too apparent. The time has not come 
for a frank disclosure of its terms. Already 
the right of transmitting property by in* 
heritance has been brought in question, and 
the right of the individual to possess more 
than a certain limited amount of wealth has 
been denied in high quarters. No one has 
ventured to draw the line at a definite point, 
either as respects possession or inheritance; 
or indicated any principle upon which the 
line could be drawn, where it should begin, 
or where it should end. The one thing most 
certain is that it would not end where it 
began. 

When duly analyzed, it becomes apparent 
that in the process of social evolution a new 
8 97 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

conception of social justice has been formed. 
It has not come into being by any process 
of reasoning. It is a child of the emotions. 
Our fathers demanded just and equal laws. 
The modern theorist replies: "Equal laws, 
laws which apply alike and equally to all 
men, cannot be just." What is demanded 
is not "equal laws" but "laws of equaliza- 
tion." Equality of law merely gives the 
prize to industry, thrift, enterprise, and econ- 
omy. It creates differences, and bestows a 
premium upon strength, skill, and talent. 
It is essentially aristocratic. It recognizes, 
promotes, and rewards superiority. It con- 
demns and indirectly punishes incapacity. 
Under equal laws men cannot be equal. 
What is demanded is equality of condition. 
This can be attained only by new laws, laws 
which will distribute to each from the com- 
mon stock according to his needs. 



98 



TAKING SOUNDINGS 

A NEW THEORY OF WEALTH 

Two sophisms underlie this demand. The 
first is a new theory of the nature of wealth. 
The idea that the individual creates wealth 
and may rightfully possess it, it is affirmed, 
is an erroneous eighteenth-century idea en- 
tertained by the founders of the American 
Republic. Wealth, on the contrary, is a 
social product; and, therefore, rightly con- 
sidered, a social possession. Value is a rela- 
tion between supply and demand. It is the 
presence of others that gives value to our 
possessions. Without them, there would be 
no value. 

Plausible and seductive as this reasoning 
may seem, it is plainly founded upon mis- 
conception. Society as a whole never yet 
initiated, conducted, or brought to success- 
ful achievement any industrial process or 
any wealth-producing activity. It is always 

99 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

an individual, or a group of individuals, that 
does these things. It is, therefore, a wholly 
unwarranted assumption to affirm that the 
totality of wealth rightfully belongs to so- 
ciety as a whole. It belongs to those who 
by their enterprise, industry, and skill have 
produced it, or who by their abstinence from 
consuming it have kept it in existence. 

RIGHTS AS THE GIFTS OF SOCIETY 

The second sophism underlying the de- 
mand for unrestrained legislation is the as- 
sumption that, since society as a whole is 
the rightful owner of everything, there ex- 
ists no individual right that is not based on 
social permission. 

The origin of this conception of right, con- 
sidered historically, is evident. All rights 
and all public powers were formerly cen- 
tered in the ruler, who could grant them to 

100 



TAKING SOUNDINGS 

others according to his good pleasure. When 
the ruler was a prince, the formula of govern- 
ment was, "The will of the prince is law/' 
Now that the people have become the rulers, 
the formula has become, "The will of the 
people is law." The people may bestow and 
the people may take away, according to their 
good pleasure. In the passage from mon- 
archy to democracy this conception of sov- 
ereign omnipotence has merely been trans- 
ferred, but it has not been changed. Popu- 
lar political thinking is still, in this respect, 
as crude and as fallacious as it was in the 
Middle Ages. 

There is not a demagogue in existence 
who would dare to say to an American audi- 
ence that a king or an emperor, because 
he is a sovereign, has an intrinsic right to 
take from his people and to distribute ac- 
cording to his will any portion of their pri- 
vate property. On the other hand, if there 

101 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

were an instance of it brought to public at- 
tention, he would denounce it as flagrant in- 
justice and as a crime that should bring 
the offending monarch to the scaffold. And 
yet he will tell the people that, because they 
are sovereign, they have a right, and should 
exercise it as a duty, to take and distribute 
private property to any extent they please ; 
and that their mere unqualified will in the 
matter is the supreme source of law on this 
and every other subject. 

The fitting penalty for this sycophancy — 
for it is nothing else — is the prompt ex- 
posure of the flatterer's selfish designs. It 
may be easy to deceive the crowd into be- 
lieving that, being sovereign, it really pos- 
sesses this universal proprietorship; but it 
would take a different view if called upon 
to endure this procedure by any other sover- 
eign than itself. And the test of sincerity 
is always available ; for no man not expect- 

102 



TAKING SOUNDINGS 

ing to profit by his proposal, either by di- 
rectly participating in the proceeds of con- 
fiscation or by acquiring public office as a 
confiscatory agent, ever seriously suggested 
such procedure. 



THE TRUE NATURE OF PUBLIC AUTHORITY 

What constitutional government intended 
to do was to end forever the idea that there 
is any rightful depository of unlimited 
power; in brief, to destroy the error that 
anyone's will is law, and to establish the 
principle that law is not a product of will, 
but a system of rules for the regulation of 
will, derived from the authority of reason. 

The problem which the framers of con- 
stitutions encountered was not merely the 
distribution of power, but the nature of pub- 
lic authority. Whence proceeds the right of 
an institution calling itself the State to im- 

103 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

pose its commands upon the individual mem- 
bers of human society? The answer given 
was: "There is no rightful authority, and 
no actual authority should be recognized, to 
deprive an individual of his inherent rights 
to life, liberty, and property." The State 
itself is subject to law — to its own funda- 
mental law — by which it and all its organs 
are bound to respect and to safeguard the 
inherent rights of its citizens. If it should 
cease to do that, it would cease to be the 
State in the sense of the American concep- 
tion. 

THE NATURE OF NEW LEGISLATION DEMANDED 

It is clear, therefore, that there is an in- 
herent and inevitable antagonism between 
the idea that legislative power should be un- 
restricted and the idea of a fundamental 
law limiting the statutory power. 

Let us note, then, the array of avowed 
104 



TAKING SOUNDINGS 

purposes actuating radical constitutional 
changes and pressing for an easier method 
of modifying our fundamental law. I quote 
a series of public statements promulgated 
and advocated by persons more or less highly 
placed, and in some instances representing 
hundreds of thousands, and even millions, 
of supporters: 

The Constitution of the United 
States was framed by and in the inter- 
ests of a property-possessing class. 

Property is rightfully the possession 
of society as a whole; when detained 
in private hands it becomes a permanent 
reward for a temporary service, or for 
no service at all. 

The pretended right to transmit 
property from one generation to an- 
other is not a natural right. 
105 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

Corporate properties should be val- 
ued according to their present cost of 
physical reproduction, and may rightly 
be taken over by the people upon that 
valuation. 

The remuneration of the worker will 
be determined either by deeds or by 
needs, as may hereafter be decided ; but 
most certainly not upon the basis of 
allowing him a reward according to the 
importance of his industrial product. 

Employers, as such, have no right 
to exist. The aim of the employed 
should be a practice that will enable 
workers to assume, as the return for 
their labor, the full control of the vari- 
ous industries. 

The idea of inalienable natural rights 
is an erroneous eighteenth-century con- 
ception. Men have no rights, except 
what society concedes to them by law. 
106 



TAKING SOUNDINGS 

No court should be permitted to nul- 
lify any act of a legislative body on the 
ground that it is unconstitutional. 1 



THE PRAGMATIC CHARACTER OF THESE 
DEMANDS 

Let it not be imagined that these are 
merely the sporadic expressions of wholly 
irresponsible persons, or the incoherent mut- 
terings of discontented men. Some of these 
doctrines have been heard in sermons, some 
have been clipped from widely circulated 
periodicals, some have been quoted from 
serious books, and others are recorded 
as the solemn resolutions of influential 
bodies. 

If we were engaged in a polemic rather 
than a merely expository task, it would be 
proper to specify the sources of these ut- 

1 See the author's "The People's Government/' pp. 
204, 206. 

107 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

terances and to make an attempt to refute 
them; but the present purpose is merely to 
indicate the elements of the leaven which is 
at present working among the people and 
affecting public opinion. If these proposi- 
tions were merely academic theses designed 
to illustrate dialetic skill, or innocuous pri- 
vate judgments like opinions regarding the 
beauty or meaning of a picture, they might 
well be passed over in silence; but, on the 
contrary, they are all of a pragmatic na- 
ture, involve the future status and interests 
of our fellow-citizens, and contemplate legal 
changes through public action. They sup- 
ply precisely the kind of materials sought 
by those who, while aiming first of all at 
their own self-advancement, desire to ap- 
pear as the advocates of forms of progress 
from which their followers may imagine 
themselves likely to receive a personal ben- 
efit. 

108 



TAKING SOUNDINGS 

THE MASK OF PHILANTHROPY 

Unfortunately some of these proposals as- 
sume a close connection with the aims of a 
pure and high-minded philanthropy, which 
serves to conceal their sordid side and im- 
parts to them a glamour of righteousness 
which they do not really possess. Our sym- 
pathies with poverty and suffering and our 
antipathy to cruelty and extortion are ap- 
pealed to, and we are led to believe that 
nothing can be wrong which brings to terms 
those who have revolted our consciences by 
their avarice or inhumanity. We are not, 
in fact, called upon to spare the feelings of 
those who themselves spare neither manhood 
nor womanhood nor childhood in their ex- 
pedients for extortion. But, on the other 
hand, we should be very untrue to the cause 
of humanity, as well as to the cause of jus- 
tice, if, in our zeal to lift up the down- 

109 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

trodden and to support the weak, we should 
sweep away the basic guarantees upon which 
the whole edifice of justice is erected. Loy- 
alty to humanity lays upon us a larger duty 
than the immediate destruction of some sin- 
gle evil, however monstrous it may seem to 
us. To cleanse and purify the temple, we 
do not need to create a conflagration; for, 
so far as just and needed social reforms are 
concerned, there is probably not a single 
one that requires for its accomplishment any 
radical change in a system of government 
by which we have progressively extermi- 
nated so many evils. 

THE CONSTITUTION NOT A CLASS GUARANTEE 

Nor can it be fairly asserted that consti- 
tutional government, as understood by our 
fathers, is of interest chiefly to the property- 
possessing class — particularly the large 

110 



TAKING SOUNDINGS 

property-possessing portion of society. It 
has never been its aim to protect any par- 
ticular class to the disadvantage of another ; 
but, on the contrary, to see to it that there 
were no insurmountable barriers to block the 
way of human aspiration, with the result 
that there are few fortunes in our country 
the foundations of which were not laid by 
men who once worked for wages. As for 
the excessively great fortunes, their pos- 
sessors are the least likely to be affected by 
any radical legislation, for they will always 
find a safe asylum in which to meditate upon 
their woes. It is the wage-earners and the 
organizers and administrators of wealth- 
producing enterprises whose hopes are 
threatened by encroachments upon our con- 
stitutional guarantees ; for the prosperity of 
the great mass of our population is depend- 
ent upon a mutual confidence that industry 
will be suitably rewarded and enterprise en- 
Ill 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

abled to prosper. Nothing could so effec- 
tively check and permanently embarrass the 
creative forces of the country as the thought 
that the results of industry and enterprise 
will be exposed to future expropriation. 

What is to become of superior skill or 
of superior power to organize and manage 
great industries, if laws of equalization are 
henceforth to be substituted for equal laws? 
Old men may placidly fold their hands and 
say to themselves, "Our work is accom- 
plished, and we shall not be here when the 
coming cataclysm arrives"; but how are mid- 
dle-aged men, and especially young men, to 
regard with equanimity the prospect of un- 
restrained legislation, based on the assump- 
tion that "everything belongs to society as 
a whole," that "the worker is not to be re- 
warded according to the importance of his 
industrial product," that "employers as such 
have no right to exist," and that "corporate 

112 



TAKING SOUNDINGS 

properties" — built up by years of toil and 
sacrifice — "may be taken over by the people 
at their physical valuation." 

THE VALUE OF CONSTITUTIONAL GUARANTEES 

And what is to insure us against this leg- 
islation if the constitutional guarantees are 
swept away? What prospect have the 
young men of all classes, if some imperium 
in imperio, some purely voluntary and ir- 
responsible organization within the State, 
is able to fill public offices with its candi- 
dates and through the control of legislative 
power impose its will upon every form of 
production, distribution, and consumption? 

Is there any disposition tending in this 
direction? Is there any power in existence, 
or likely to come into existence, that can 
assume full control of the various indus- 
tries, dictate the hours and conditions of 
9 113 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

labor, the amount of the product, the agen- 
cies through which it shall be distributed, 
the rewards which each participant shall 
receive? If such a power came into being, 
what would be left of individual liberty, 
and what would be the value of each indi- 
vidual life ? Would there be any open mar- 
ket in which a man might dispose of his 
own wares at his own price? Would there 
be any possibility of existence except upon 
conditions laid down by the State, or by 
the imperium in imperio that controlled the 
State, or by the junta of persons permitted 
to wield the power in this machine within 
a machine? 

What, then, becomes of the conception of 
society as a "living thing," of free citizen- 
ship, of personal liberty? And where is to 
be found the wisdom, the integrity, the self- 
abnegation to give wholesome direction to 
this mechanism composed of human beings 

114 



TAKING SOUNDINGS 

fitted into wheels and pinions, and consumed 
to furnish its propelling power? Who 
would be responsible for that satisfaction of 
needs, that adjustment of capacities, that 
restraint of appetites, that stimulation of 
energies without which such mechanism 
would be a mere lump of death? 

And what, finally, would be the gain in 
such a state of human association, when 
each man proclaimed that the crusts remain- 
ing were "common property," withheld by 
their transient possessors from those who 
did not possess, with the cry: "We are tak- 
ing that which is ours, for all is ours so long 
as there is a crumb!" 

THE SPIRIT OF REVOLT AGAINST FUNDAMEN- 
TAL LAW 

Only sporadically and occasionally, 
thanks to our traditions of respect for law 
and the constitutional system we have in- 

115 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

herited, have we been afflicted with scenes 
of violence and open revolt, yet they have 
not been wholly wanting. But the spirit of 
revolt against the public order secured by 
our laws and their constitutional guarantees 
is frequently and very boldly expressed. 

"We want to get something for ourselves, 
now, not for our grandchildren," said a paid 
propagandist of anti-constitutional princi- 
ples in a public address recently in a west- 
ern city. 

"We can't accomplish much under our 
government," he continued, "which is clumsy 
and impossible, almost hopeless. . . . Under 
it we can't pass any law of consequence in- 
terfering with vested rights. The Constitu- 
tion, old, musty, and antiquated, is a barrier, 
with the Supreme Court all powerful. . . . 
We must get what we want by standing to- 
gether. Do something radical." 

116 



TAKING SOUNDINGS 

Is there, then, no "crisis" in American 
constitutionalism? Will the foes of the Con- 
stitution ultimately stand together? It is 
not unlikely. Will its friends also stand 
together? They will continue, perhaps, to 
group themselves about opposing standards 
chiefly concerned with minor matters, some- 
times unconsciously allied with elements 
which they must finally disavow, until they 
perceive that a great menace to society has 
arisen. Then they will make haste to rally 
about the Constitution, as their fathers ral- 
lied about the Union when the gravity of 
a situation too long ignored compelled their 
attention. When will that be? 



A PERILOUS SITUATION 

In the meantime is nothing to be done? 
The opposition to the Constitution is by no 
means attributable to the importation of for- 

117 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

eign blood alone. A high school graduate, 
writing from a western city, confides to me 
the change that he has experienced. He 
says: 

"My ancestors fought in 1776, in 1812 and 
in 1860-1865 for the establishment and de- 
fense of constitutional government. I en- 
tered the workaday world with a high re- 
gard for our Constitution and its guaran- 
tees and a deep and glowing patriotism. 
... I agree with you, sir, that a crisis is 
at hand in constitutionalism, and if those 
who still have faith in it will make some 
mighty concerted move to enforce its guar- 
antees and fulfill its mandates of abstract 
righteousness, the situation may yet be 
saved; but for my part I do not think the 
number of those who honestly try to en- 
force constitutional guarantees is sufficient 
to warrant serious consideration. I, there- 

118 



TAKING SOUNDINGS 

fore, declare that I have no faith in either 
the Federal Constitution or its administra- 
tors, because neither it nor they secure me 
anything. . . . Could I do so, I would leave 
the flag and these hypocritical institutions 
before another day. . . . There is naught 
left for me to do save secretly to arm, if yet 
I may, and await the hour when a Francisco 
Villa shall arise on this side of the Rio 
Grande with the cry, 'On to Washington!' " 
And what could possibly happen at Wash- 
ington that would change this young man's 
state of mind, or the situation of which his 
frank expression is an index? What is 
needed is not so much anything to be done 
at Washington as something that might ad- 
vantageously happen East, West, North 
and South — a change in the attitude of men 
toward the idea of law and toward one an- 
other. It is always the individual who suf- 
fers. We cannot save or help him by any 

119 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

kind of mere class legislation. It is not to 
his advantage to make him dependent, to 
abridge his powers of self-help, or to take 
away his liberty of action as long as he does 
not injure others. We help him most when 
we leave him free to pass out of anj^ class 
to which he may temporarily belong, when 
we inspire him with the idea of self-de- 
pendence, and when we secure to him the 
possession of what by his industry, skill, or 
enterprise he may honestly acquire. Let 
us help him, certainly, if he needs help ; but 
not delude him with the error that more is 
rightly coming to him than he has ever 
earned, nor frighten him with the dread that 
he can never come to his own. For sympa- 
thy, charity, good example, and unselfish 
public service there will always be room ; but 
for the suppression of native powers, for 
public dictation based on arbitrary rules, for 
the assumption that society is more impor- 

120 



TAKING SOUNDINGS 

tant than those who compose it, and for 
the forcible expropriation of success for the 
relief of failure, there is no place in a free 
republic. 



IV 

THE TESTS OF AMERICAN 
DEMOCRACY 



IV 

THE TESTS OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 

Is Americanism then a foredoomed fail- 
ure? Must we abandon it for some new ex- 
periment? Must we conclude that our fath- 
ers were wrong in their conviction that the 
object of government is the protection of 
rights inherent in human personality, and 
also in the belief that a written compact in 
this sense can afford them a satisfactory- 
safeguard? Is it true, as has been so often 
predicted, that American Democracy, like 
other forms of Democracy, will ultimately 
show itself to be essentially weak and fluctu- 
ating; that it cannot live up to an ethical 
standard; and that, by seeking the basis of 
public authority in the individuals who 
compose the nation, it must at last be 

125 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

rent asunder by their conflicting pas- 
sions ? 

Is not the logical inference rather that 
it is only in the American type of Democ- 
racy, as that is embodied in our Federal Con- 
stitution, that any rational hope may be 
found of a permanently peaceful organiza- 
tion of society in which human rights will 
find a guarantee ? The revolt against consti- 
tutional principles and the basing of public 
authority on the unqualified popular will 
ends, as we have seen, in a proposal of secret 
arming and a resort to violence. Is it not 
evident that, where there is no sense of per- 
sonal duty, no acceptance of universally 
obligatory ethical principles which majori- 
ties as well as minorities must obey, there 
is no ground of permanence in a democratic 
form of government? And if there is no 
standard of conduct but that of predominant 
"will" — as the unregulated expression of 

126 



THE TESTS OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 

what the greater number of persons from 
time to time think they would most enjoy — 
is there in Democracy any quality by virtue 
of which it can prove its superiority over 
that Imperialism against which it persist- 
ently declaims, but which it imitates in claim- 
ing the right to rule merely because it pos- 
sesses the power to do so? 

THE TEST OF DEMOCRACY AS A THEORY 

Unless Democracy can rid itself, as it has 
in the American conception of the State, of 
the obsession that those who possess "sover- 
eignty" thereby enjoy the right to exercise 
unlimited public authority, it cannot suc- 
cessfully debate in the forum of sound rea- 
soning its superiority over its great rival as 
a form of human government. If it agrees 
with its antagonist that there are no inher- 
ent personal rights which it may not over- 

127 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

ride, and that the only rights it will respect 
are those bestowed by its own legislation, 
does it not by that concession undermine and 
forfeit its own rightful authority to legis- 
late? For how can it be maintained that 
a prerogative that belongs only to dominant 
power is rendered more authoritative by pre- 
ponderant numbers than it may be rendered 
by preponderant force of any other kind? 

Absolute Democracy, basing its authority 
upon a process of counting units which, as 
it claims, connote no natural rights, has 
no solid ground for its pretension to be the 
originator of rights; for these, in any sense 
worthy of the respect of a rational intelli- 
gence, cannot be evolved from mere arbi- 
trary decrees. By denying, or disallowing, 
the inherent rights of a minority, and at the 
same time asserting that all rights are cre- 
ated by the legislation of the majority, it 
entirely cuts away the ground from under 

128 



THE TESTS OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 

its own feet, and leaves without any logical 
foundation its own right to legislate. If, 
on the contrary, it bases its right to legislate 
on the inherent rights of personality, it is 
bound to recognize rights antecedent to leg- 
islation which it cannot deny. Constitutional 
Democracy, the form of Democracy which 
has hitherto prevailed in the United States, 
is at least consistent in theory. By seeking 
its foundation in human personality, it 
makes an appeal to universal reason and not 
to preponderant force, in whatever form it 
may be measured. 

THE REAL PROBLEM OF GOVERNMENT 

In America men have rarely doubted that 
"life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" 
are inalienable human rights, which govern- 
ment must respect. It has been generally 
recognized that the deepest problem of gov- 
10 129 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

ernment is to find the true harmony between 
the inherent rights of the individual and the 
authority of the State ; for, unless the State 
possesses a certain measure of authority, 
there can be no such thing as government. 
In our search for the source of this authority 
we postulate "sovereignty," which we con- 
ceive of as inherent in the people. In so 
far as we understand by it a right of the 
people to organize and maintain the means 
for their own protection, its existence, like 
that of other inherent rights, is axiomatic; 
but, if it be regarded as a right so tran- 
scendent that it may override all other rights, 
we shall have difficulty in establishing its ex- 
istence. If it is in its nature absolute and 
unlimited, it could sweep away and efface 
entirely everything that opposed it. This, 
in fact, is the pretension of Absolute De- 
mocracy; and in this it differs from Imperi- 
alism only in the assumption that the right 

130 



THE TESTS OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 

to impose arbitrary requirements belongs 
to everyone who is capable of doing it rather 
than to a single dominant person claiming 
to possess exclusive imperial authority. 

To elective Imperialism this type of De- 
mocracy can raise no valid objection; for, 
if unlimited power belongs to the people, 
it may, with their assent, be delegated to a 
single depository. And this is the conclu- 
sion at which this kind of Democracy usu- 
ally arrives. It places responsibility for ac- 
tion in the hands of a single man. Every 
imperial throne that has been erected since 
the Roman Republic was transformed into 
the Roman Empire has been based upon 
the assumed assent of the people. And in 
every instance this termination of popular 
commotion has been accompanied by a sense 
of relief and satisfaction; for, as Edmund 
Burke remarked, in his "Reflections on the 
French Revolution": "In a democracy the 

131 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

majority of citizens is capable of exercising 
the most cruel oppression upon the minority, 
whenever strong divisions prevail in that 
kind of policy, as they often must; and that 
oppression of the minority will extend to 
far greater numbers, and will be carried on 
with greater fury, than can almost ever be 
apprehended from the domination of a single 
scepter. In such a popular persecution in- 
dividual sufferers are in a much more de- 
plorable condition than in any other. Under 
a cruel prince they have at least the balmy 
compassion of mankind to assuage the smart 
of their wounds; . . . but those who are 
subjected to wrongs under multitudes are 
deprived of external consolations ; they seem 
deserted by mankind and overpowered by a 
conspiracy of their own species." 



132 



THE TESTS OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 

RESPONSIBILITY IN A TRUE DEMOCRACY 

It is clear that the citizen must accept and 
obey some form of public authority; but it 
is equally clear that public authority must 
consent to limit itself before it goes so far 
as to invade the sanctuary of the personal 
freedom that is essential to individual re- 
sponsibility. 

The true solution is found in the Amer- 
ican conception of the State, and in this 
voluntary self -limitation of power lies the 
true foundation of Democracy. In this sys- 
tem the citizen, being free, is himself re- 
sponsible for government. He is a con- 
stituent, and not a mere subject, of the State. 
He acts through representatives whom he 
believes to be competent to deliberate wisely 
and conclude justly; but, in any case, they 
are his representatives, and are subject to 
his approbation or disapprobation. The 

133 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

government, whatever it is, is his govern- 
ment. If it be good, he must see that it is 
preserved and continued. If it be bad, he 
must see that it is reformed or discontinued. 
Whatever it is, he can never justly blame 
it. He can only blame himself. 

DEMOCRACY VERSUS IMPERIALISM 

This constitutional idea of the limited 
powers of government, and this alone, is 
really antithetical to Imperialism, whose 
watchword is unlimited power. Imperialism 
does not inquire or exhort, it commands and 
compels. It wants nothing of its subject 
but abject submission and obedience. He is 
not, in its conception, a constituent of the 
State. He possesses no inherent rights. He 
can claim as his rights only what govern- 
ment accords to him.* 

Who, then, is the government ? The man 
134 



THE TESTS OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 

who is in power and has the force to remain 
in power. In the imperial formula, "The 
will of the prince is law." Authority, in 
this conception of it, does not proceed from 
any source of responsibility toward men. 
The prince may be responsible to God, but 
not to man. He renders an account to no 
one. For the subject his decision is final. 
To escape it, he must overpower and de- 
stroy a system sustained by a horde of pen- 
sioners upon it; but the chances are that, if 
he resists it, it will first overpower and de- 
stroy him. 

THE IRRESPONSIBILITY OF MAJORITY 
ABSOLUTISM 

Quite as completely as the prince, the om- 
nipotent majority, unrestrained by any fun- 
damental compact, is devoid of responsibil- 
ity. It may, in concrete instances, limit its 
action by its own private sense of propriety ; 

135 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

but this is not in any way binding upon it, 
and is purely voluntary. It is governed by 
no superior law, and is accountable to no one. 
It may treat the individuals belonging to the 
minority as it pleases. It may strip them 
of their possessions and distribute them to 
others. It may impose its own arbitrary 
limitations upon their daily lives in what- 
ever manner it prefers. It may prescribe 
their daily tasks and compel them to per- 
form them. In short, it may, if it pleases, 
reduce them to slavery. 

It is probable that in an intelligent so- 
ciety even an omnipotent majority would 
not do all of these things, and it is equally 
probable that an intelligent prince would not 
do them. But, unless intelligence sufficiently 
controlled a community to induce it to set 
some limits by law to its powers of legisla- 
tion, it could hardly be trusted in the exer- 
cise of its powers. A people so pure, so just, 

136 



THE TESTS OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 

and so unselfish as never to be moved by its 
passions would hardly require a government. 
It would be self-regulative without law. 

The plea for absolute majority rule and 
for the abrogation of fundamental law is 
made upon the ground that it is necessary 
to remedy abuses. It is directed against the 
alleged control of legislation by minorities. 
But why is legislation ever controlled by 
minorities? If it is, is it not because of 
the indifference or incapacity of majorities? 
We now have nominating primaries, but it 
is rarely the case that real majorities nomi- 
nate. The truth is: nothing is so difficult 
as to induce citizens to give attention to their 
political duties. If constitutional restraints 
were removed, there is no assurance that 
laws would be made by majorities, even with 
the universal adoption of the initiative and 
the referendum. Law r s would be passed 
by those who were interested in passing 

137 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

them, and there would be no one to hold 
responsible. They would often be conflict- 
ing and impracticable, and their effects 
sometimes disastrous. 

JUST GOVERNMENT ESSENTIALLY 
SELF-LIMITING 

It is by no means possible to insure human 
wisdom, but it is possible to abridge human 
folly. The value of constitutional limita- 
tions lies in this possibility. A constitution 
is to a State what conscience is to human 
character. It distinguishes between that 
which is fundamentally right and that which 
is fundamentally wrong By curbing om- 
nipotence it directs legislation into a channel 
of social utility. It makes the individual re- 
sponsible for obedience to the law, and the 
legislator amenable to deliberately estab- 
lished standards of justice. Both must give 
an account of themselves before competent 

138 



THE TESTS OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 

judges, whose function it is to see that jus- 
tice, and not arbitrary power, shall prevail. 
We perceive, therefore, that just govern- 
ment must be essentially self -limiting. An 
omnipotent Democracy is merely a complex 
form of Imperialism, because it is irrespon- 
sible. We have, in truth, to choose between 
Democracy in which a self-limiting sover- 
eignty issues from the composite will of the 
people organizing themselves under respon- 
sible government, and Imperialism in which 
sovereignty disregards the will and the rights 
of the people as constituents of the State, 
and issues its decrees for its own purpose, 
acknowledging no accountability to any 
human being. 

THE CONFLICT BETWEEN DEMOCRACY AND 
IMPERIALISM 

Now that which gives to these abstract 
statements a general interest is that, if there 

139 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

is to be any orderly and peaceable relation 
between the nations of the earth, and any 
legal organization of the world, one or the 
other of these solutions has to be accepted 
as the means by which it is to be established 
and maintained. We, in America, believe 
in Democracy. But the important question 
is : Can Democracy stand the test that is now 
applied to it? Has it the virtue, the cour- 
age, and the efficiency, to insure its own 
safety and preserve its own existence in the 
struggle for life? 

Of the two rival methods of establishing 
peace, order, and justice in the world, the 
more ancient and the more fully tried is Im- 
perialism. The more recent and the less 
tested is Democracy. Both imply the neces- 
sity of some kind of ethical standard; for 
both aim in some degree at justice, and 
both hold up for acceptance the idea of 
duty. But the postulates that underlie these 

140 



THE TESTS OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 

methods are not only different, they are 
contradictory. 

Imperialism assumes that the individual 
as a member of society is a creation of the 
State. Without it he would be a savage. 
Existing in its own right, the State should 
expand as far as possible its jurisdiction and 
its power; and, knowing no limits, it should 
aim to be universal. 

Democracy, on the other hand, regards 
the State as a sum of legalized relations in- 
stituted for the benefit of the individuals 
who compose it. It concedes the equal right 
of other groups of men to establish and to 
change their forms of government. Finally, 
it places the happiness and prosperity of the 
individual above the power and glory of 
the State. It is, therefore, in perma- 
nent conflict with Imperialism; for it pro- 
ceeds upon a diametrically opposite assump- 
tion. 

141 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 
THE STRENGTH OF IMPERIALISM 

Unless it is possible to organize all na- 
tions under one central empire — which his- 
tory teaches us is incapable of achievement 
— if the various races and classes of men 
are ever to dwell together in peace and amity 
under definite forms of law, federated for 
the maintenance of international justice, yet 
without the extinction of nationality, the 
task will have to be accomplished by De- 
mocracy ; for, so long as the State is regarded 
as existing for itself, it will not and cannot 
submit to limitations of what it conceives 
to be its sovereign rights. Empires do not 
federate, they struggle for supremacy. 

There is, nevertheless, in Imperialism an 
element of strength and endurance which 
Democracy cannot readily emulate. If the 
acquisition of national wealth and power, 
the most complete efficiency of the social 

142 



THE TESTS OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 

organism, the most perfect security against 
foreign aggression, the certainty of food, 
and drink, and shelter — in short, the purely 
material aspects of human existence — are 
the main objects of government, then the 
absolute domination of a wise ruler over an 
extended territory may be preferable to in- 
dividual freedom and the responsibility that 
goes with it. 

No one can question the advantage of 
vigorous captaincy, of strict discipline, and 
of submission to authority, in any struggle 
that depends upon united action. The indi- 
vidual may wholly lose his power of self- 
direction, but he will gain larger spoils by 
united effort under the command of a su- 
perior. As Kipling has expressed it: 

Now this is the law of the jungle — 

As old and as true as the sky; 
And the wolf that shall keep it may prosper, 

143 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

But the wolf that shall break it must die. 
As the creeper that girdles the tree front, 

The law runneth forward and back — 
For the strength of the pack is the wolf, 

And the strength of the wolf is the 
pack. 
Now these are the laws of the jungle, 

And many and mighty are they; 
But the head and the hoof of the law, 

And the haunch and the hump is obey. 



WEAK POINTS IN DEMOCRACY 

The strength of Imperialism consists in 
the full recognition of the law of the jungle. 
It is frankly based on superior force. But 
the ethical standard disregards mere phys- 
ical force, limits itself by invisible bound- 
aries, and sets up law in the place of power. 
If Democracy is to be inspired by it, it must 
dedicate all its strength to justice, consent 
to make sacrifices, and in some degree to 

144 



THE TESTS OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 

forego efficiency in order to acquire moral 
dignity. 

The weakness of Democracy is, therefore, 
apparent. It recognizes rights in others 
which it will not for its own advantage con- 
sent to take away, believing that these rights 
are inherent in personality and, therefore, 
inalienable. Imperialism is less scrupulous. 
It knows no duty but duty to the State, 
which it imposes ruthlessly upon every indi- 
vidual. There are, in this conception, no 
rights that are not the gifts of governments. 
Hence Imperialism knows no law but its 
own will. It follows the path that leads to 
success. It can promote science, develop 
industry, ^extend commerce, and organize 
armies, without consulting its subjects. 
Their province is simply to obey. 

Democracy can do none of these things. 
It must propose, debate, persuade, convince, 
and wait for the answer to its referendum. 
" 145 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

And while it is doing this, Imperialism, al- 
ways provident, always watchful, always 
ready, strikes the fatal blow. 

All this is true of the purest and noblest 
type of Democracy, but Democracy is not 
always of this type. In a Democracy, men 
are likely to think constantly of themselves, 
of their so-called "rights," but only in crises 
or at intervals of the State, and of their 
duty to the State; so that, in emergencies, 
they open their eyes with surprise when re- 
quired to make sacrifices for the State, and 
especially when called upon to defend it. 

IS DEMOCRACY AN IMPEDIMENT TO DUTY? 

And it is just here that Democracy has to 
meet its crucial test. Have we, in America, 
for example, the fiber to meet it? 

Lately we have been passing through an 
orgy of criticism upon our own institutions 

146 



THE TESTS OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 

They have been assaulted as archaic, insin- 
cere, fundamentally dishonest, and unfair. 
Our great heroes of the past, the founders 
of the nation, even Washington — the purest 
patriot and the most judicious statesman 
that ever lived — have been made the objects 
of diatribe and censure. The Constitution 
has been reviled as an anachronism, and the 
substitution for it of immediate popular deci- 
sions — without debate, without reflection, 
and without consideration for the country 
as a whole but only of the assumed inter- 
ests of a majority — has been advocated. 
People have sung, "I Did Not Raise My 
Boy to Be a Soldier," and they have ap- 
plauded peace at any price. And what must 
be the feeling of contempt of any watchful 
imperialist who may be marking us out for 
the next victim in the game of empire? 

To what standard are we prepared to 
rally, with the fixed resolution to defend it? 

147 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

To whom may we look as a leader, a knight 
without fear and without reproach, whose 
call we may follow even unto death? Alas 
for Democracy, if it comes to the conclusion 
that its principles are not worth dying for, 
and that its chiefs cannot be trusted ! 

OUR OWN RELATION TO IMPERIALISM 

We know, all of us, and it requires no 
special indictment of any nation to prove 
it, that the spirit of Imperialism still exists 
in the world, that it is not confined to one 
nation, that it is active, that it may some- 
where be triumphant, or, what is worse, that 
it may somewhere be disappointed of its 
expectations, without being extinguished, 
and look for new fields of conquest. Some 
day we may have to resist the intrusion of 
it into our own sphere of responsibility ; and 
what shall we do then? Shall we remain 
passive, or shall we act? 

148 



THE TESTS OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 

We know further that the greatest dan- 
ger of all is the attempt to amalgamate the 
spirit of Imperialism with the spirit of De- 
mocracy; for this would probably result in 
the triumph of Imperialism in our own re- 
public and the sapping of the virtues of the 
democratic ideal. The truth is that there 
is a deadly incompatibility in the effort to 
serve two masters. If we really aim at em- 
pire, it is suicidal to cultivate Democracy. 
If we love Democracy, we must renounce 
the spirit of conquest and world domination. 
The two currents, coming together, serve 
to weaken the national energies and to para- 
lyze the body politic. 

THE BRITISH EXAMPLE 

Great Britain has tried that experiment, 
and the lesson should not be lost. Take, for 
example, the swing of the pendulum between 

149 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

Imperialism and Democracy during the 
dominance of their great protagonists, Dis- 
raeli and Gladstone — the result of the two- 
party system, in which the roles of these two 
great leaders might conceivably have been 
interchanged; for each was under the po- 
litical necessity of opposing the other. The 
one aimed at foreign expansion and world 
domination, crippling or impeding the prog- 
ress and ambitions of other nations, secur- 
ing points of advantage for colonies or naval 
bases in every part of the globe, guarding 
Gibraltar, controlling the Suez Canal, con- 
tending with Russia in India and Persia, 
and with the rest of Europe in Africa. The 
other labored for electoral reform, urging 
ecclesiastical disestablishment, proposing 
home rule in Ireland, undoing Disraeli's, 
compacts with the Boers, calling off the con- 
flict in Afghanistan, extending sympathy 
to the Armenians — but, sad to recall, more 

150 



THE TESTS OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 

interested in the cotton weavers of Man- 
chester than in the suppression of slavery 
in the United States. 

And now see the fruits of this double pol- 
icy in England. A democracy, no doubt, 
but an imperial democracy. A democracy 
that accords every inherent right to an Eng- 
lishman, but an empire that claims suprem- 
acy on the sea and subordination to its will 
everywhere where it can be exercised. Has 
not British Imperialism evoked in other na- 
tions a spirit that British Democracy is now 
struggling to allay? 

THE DEMOCRATIC IDEAL 

I mean to throw no weight into the scale 
of the world conflict now raging. I speak 
only as an American to Americans. And 
my message is this : that there is an inherent 
opposition between Imperialism and De- 

151 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

mocracy; that if we say the State exists for 
the individual, in. order that he may reach 
his highest development of reason, con- 
science, personal freedom, and responsibil- 
ity, and that the individual does not owe 
body and soul to the ambitions of the State, 
then we must agree that every people, every- 
where, capable of organizing and maintain- 
ing a responsible government, should be per- 
mitted to do so, to possess and to rule in 
their own land, and must be held accountable 
for their conduct on land and sea, in ac- 
cordance with just and uniform laws of in- 
ternational comity and principles of hu- 
manity. 

I know very well that, in the present con- 
dition of mankind, this program is difficult 
to realize; for there is, besides Imperialism 
and Democracy, a third factor that enters 
into the making of history; and that is an- 
archy. 

152 



THE TESTS OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 

What is to be done where that condition 
reigns, as it does today in Mexico? And 
yet, the effort to suppress it may be re- 
garded as a manifestation of the imperial 
spirit and the suppression of democratic 
ideals. And all this only shows how difficult 
is the task of true statesmanship. 

THE TEST OF OUR OWN DEMOCRACY 

But, certainly, we cannot be true to our 
democratic ideal, unless we are prepared, at 
whatever cost, to defend it, with all that it 
implies. Can Democracy endure this test? 
Can we frame an international policy that 
we can defend before the bar of reason and 
conscience; and then, with loyalty and re- 
gardless of sacrifices, carry it into execution ? 

The first requirement of such a policy is 
to avoid any mixture of Imperialism in our 
own conduct. We have shown our ability 

153 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

to do this in the case of Cuba ; and we shall 
show ourselves capable of it, I believe, in 
every instance ; but there are responsibilities 
that we cannot disregard. We cannot aban- 
don to internal anarchy or external subju- 
gation any people over whom the aegis of 
our protection has been extended. 

It is to the test of strength and purity 
that Democracy must be brought, and it is 
to this test that I should like to bring every 
one of my fellow-citizens throughout the na- 
tion. Is Democracy worth what it may cost 
to defend it? Are we ready to pay the 
price? Have we the virility* the courage, 
and the spirit of sacrifice; but, above all, 
have we the wisdom to unite all our strength 
and dedicate all our powers to the ideals by 
which we have lived? 



154 



THE TESTS OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 

THE TRIUMPH OF DEMOCRACY 

Such questions as these have been asked 
before, and they have been triumphantly an- 
swered. In July, 1861, President Lincoln, 
in an hour of desperate peril for this nation, 
and, as he said, "for the whole family of 
man," asked the question: "Is there, in all 
republics, this inherent and fatal weakness? 
Must a government of necessity be too 
strong for the liberties of its own people, or 
too w r cak to maintain its own existence ?" 

We know what the answer was. And the 
answer, in the end, will always be the same. 
It is not its Imperialism, but its Democracy, 
that will save the British Empire, if that 
Empire is to be saved. Its safety lies not 
in its imperial authority, but in its demo- 
cratic rule. It is the spirit of Gladstone, 
and not the spirit of Disraeli, that it must 
now invoke. Canada, Australia, New Zea- 

155 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

land, South Africa, and even India do not 
rally to the trumpet call of imperial com- 
mand alone, but far more to the instinct of 
democratic self-preservation as self-govern- 
ing colonies. 

And if America is to be saved, it will not 
be by American Imperialism. It will be 
by the thought that anyone who strikes at 
the life, or takes away unjustly the property, 
of any American citizen, strikes at you and 
at me, even though we be safe at home, and 
all our possessions may seem to be secure. 

If there is ever to be a realization of Ten- 
nyson's prophetic dream of a Parliament of 
Man and a Federation of the World, it will 
be through Democracy — Democracy assert- 
ing the inherent and inalienable rights of 
man, reaching out hands of mutual helpful- 
ness wherever rights are invaded, binding 
our American Republics into a true fra- 
ternity based on the secure independence of 

156 



THE TESTS OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 

constitutional States, and welcoming to its 
brotherhood all nations that love peace and 
justice, and are willing to be ruled by equal 
laws. 



AMERICANISM AND WORLD 
POLITICS 



V 

AMERICANISM AND WORLD POLITICS 

What, then, is the prospect of a better or- 
ganization of the world? 

Imperialism offers no principle upon 
which the rights of nations can be affirmed 
and coordinated. As it recognizes no in- 
herent right in the individual, it finds none 
in the small or weak nation which it, there- 
fore, claims the authority to overrule, to 
subjugate, and to annex, when it is to its 
interest to do so. 

In this, Imperialism is sustained by fault- 
less logic, to which Absolute Democracy also 
must assent; for, if rights are exclusively 
the results of legislation, where there is no 
law there are no rights. What is called in- 
ternational law, the imperialist affirms, is 
12 161 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

not law in any true sense; for it is not im- 
posed by any supreme authority; is not en- 
forceable by any organized executive power; 
and is, in fact, nothing more than an accumu- 
lation of customs, to which have been added 
certain voluntary conventions that may at 
any time be withdrawn and annulled. 

THE REAL BASIS OF INTERNATIONAL LAW 

It is worthy of remark, that, historically, 
Americanism and international law have a 
common origin and a common foundation. 
From Grotius onward, including all the 
early writers on the law of nations, it is 
assumed that every independent and re- 
sponsible State possesses certain inherent 
and inalienable rights; and that it is upon 
these "natural rights" that the whole fabric 
of international law is based. Customs 
and conventions, it is admitted, have been 

162 



AMERICANISM AND WORLD POLITICS 

developed in the effort to secure these rights 
and, in the future as in the past, these cus- 
toms will undoubtedly change ; but the fixed 
and immutable principles of international 
law, which constitute its reason for exist- 
ence, and express the ideals which it aims 
to realize, are not the result of customs and 
conventions. They exist in their own right, 
as the embodiment and expression of the 
universal conception of justice. 

The influence of Imperialism, both in its 
theory and its practice, has been to under- 
mine this foundation of international law. 
Its teaching is that the law of nature and 
natural rights, on which the American con- 
ception of the State and the theory of in- 
ternational law are founded, should be no 
longer seriously regarded in the world of 
political thought. Nothing, it is contended, 
can be accepted as law, unless it has been 
established by an act of sovereign author- 

163 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

ity, and is supported by an effective sanc- 
tion. What is called international law ful- 
fills neither of these conditions. No nation, 
therefore, is in reality bound by it. Not only 
so, but it is intrusive and vexatious; for it 
claims the prerogative of limiting supreme 
power and arresting the development of a 
Sovereign State. The unlimited authority 
of the State entitles it to expand indefi- 
nitely — territorially and otherwise — to take 
possession of whatever it can appropriate, 
and to hold whatever its armed force en- 
ables it to retain. 



DO INHERENT NATIONAL RIGHTS EXIST? 

In two great international conferences at 
The Hague the incompatibility of the Amer- 
ican and the imperial conceptions was clearly 
brought to light. 

In all international dealings the complete 
164 



AMERICANISM AND WORLD POLITICS 

sovereignty of all truly independent and 
responsible States is .ostensibly assumed and 
admitted ; but there is, without doubt, a wide 
difference in the conceptions of complete 
sovereignty entertained by different nations. 
Is sovereignty in its essential nature limited, 
or is it unlimited? 

The question is fundamental ; for upon the 
answer turns the whole problem as to 
whether there can exist a society of Sover- 
eign States in a truly juristic sense. 

A jural society implies an association of 
equals, mutually recognizing in one another 
the same relative rights. Unlimited sover- 
eignty would render this impossible; for, 
by its very nature, unlimited sovereignty 
could not be divided, and if it existed at all 
could be the exclusive possession of only one. 
It is, therefore, an empty assumption, with- 
out support either in fact or in theory. In a 
jural society members may differ in power 

165 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

and magnitude, for the reason that these 
do not constitute the ground of its existence; 
but if to these inequalities there be added 
an acknowledged inequality of rights, the 
whole foundation of social organization is 
swept away. The small nations then be- 
come the predestined vassals of the great. 

As this is the confessed aim of Imperial- 
ism, it is not surprising that it favors the 
feudal rather than the national type of 
world organization. Being disposed to dic- 
tate the law to subordinates, it resents any 
law that is restrictive of its own dominant 
authority. It does not desire to be held 
accountable to anyone for its conduct, 
or to bind itself by self-limiting engage- 
ments. 

To Constitutional Democracy, on the 
other hand, sovereignty may be complete 
without being unlimited; because it is, in 
reality, nothing more than the right of an in- 

166 



AMERICANISM AND WORLD POLITICS 

dependent and responsible people to organ- 
ize a government for its own protection. It 
is, by its nature, an ethical and not a dynam- 
ical conception. It is based upon the inher- 
ent rights of the people, and not upon mere 
power. It implies no authority over others 
than its own constituent elements; for all 
free men capable of forming a responsible 
government have an equal right to do so, 
and such a government cannot deny the in- 
herent rights of another State without a 
logical denial of its own. 

THE POSSIBILITY OF WORLD ORGANIZATION 

It is evident, therefore, that, while Im- 
perialism has no plan of world organization, 
aside from its own universal domination and 
the subordination by force of all peoples 
to its will, Constitutional Democracy, rec- 
ognizing the rights of nations, offers such 

167 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

a plan through the progressive federation 
of self-governed peoples, 

A distinction at this point is, however, 
important. Nationality implies a strict in- 
ternal unity, and the direct action of cen- 
tral authority upon each individual com- 
ponent of the nation. A federal govern- 
ment, like that of the United States, for 
example, has direct authority over every 
citizen in every State in certain matters. A 
general federation of nations would not ad- 
mit of such direct action by a central au- 
thority; for this would involve the extinc- 
tion of nationality, which practically all na- 
tions would resist. 

There remains, however, the possibility of 
a compact less consolidating in its effects 
than such a union would be — a federation 
based upon the acceptance of a codified law 
of nations, an engagement to unite in ob- 
serving and enforcing it, and an agreement 

168 



AMERICANISM AND WORLD POLITICS 

to abide by the decisions of neutral judges 
in disputes arising under it. Such a com- 
pact would be, in effect, a Constitution of 
Civilization. It would recognize the rights 
of nationality and base itself upon them. It 
would not destroy national sovereignty, in 
its true and proper sense ; for, while it would 
frankly admit its necessary limitation, it 
would not lessen its ethical completeness. 
Such a plan would secure to every people 
the unrestricted right of self-government, 
and furnish to all nations a basis for amicable 
cooperation in securing their future peace- 
ful development and common prosperity. 

THE IMPEDIMENTS TO WORLD ORGANIZATION 

Reasonable as such a plan may be, the 
hope of its realization is obstructed by ex- 
isting conditions of which it is necessary to 
take account ; and it is important to remem- 

169 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

ber that it is the passions rather than the 
reason of men that have hitherto ruled the 
world. 

There was a time, and it was not very 
long ago, when some of us dreamed that 
there was a way to secure the rights of na- 
tions and adjust the differences between 
them without the use of armed force. That 
method was simply an agreement to bring 
their controversies before a neutral inter- 
national tribunal and submit to the prin- 
ciples of justice; but alas! it has proved to 
be a dream — a beautiful and inspiring 
dream, but none the less a vision of the 
mind. 

We have experienced a rude awakening. 
We have learned that mankind has not yet 
advanced to the stage of development where 
dependence can be placed upon the appeal 
to reason. It is a sad disillusionment, but 
we are compelled by the facts to accept it. 

170 



AMERICANISM AND WORLD POLITICS 

Virtue and innocence are not yet exempt 
from violence. Neither accepted law nor 
solemn treaties and conventions, to which 
the sacred honor of nations is pledged, se- 
cure them from it. Womanhood and child- 
hood, as well as manhood, are made its vic- 
tims, and we may read the dreadful truth 
again and again in ghastly, speechless faces 
and in desecrated, mutilated bodies, as well 
as in ruined towns and cities and unnum- 
bered graves. 

THE PRESENT BASIS OF NATIONAL SECURITY 

That which compels our attention at this 
time is the fact that the whole superstruc- 
ture of previously accepted international 
law as embodied in treaties and conventions 
and the consensus of opinion of the civilized 
world, has been shaken to its foundations; 
and we are confronted with the question, 

171 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

Upon what does our national security de- 
pend? 

Our first thought naturally is that it de- 
pends upon our resolute determination to 
avoid being drawn into war. But is it true 
that exemption from war may be secured 
by a firm resolution to avoid it? At the 
present moment all the Great Powers of 
Europe, and several of the smaller ones, are 
engaged in a terrific struggle which all of 
them claim not to have desired, and in which 
they prof ess to be unwillingly engaged. The 
necessary inference is that in the present 
political organization of the world war may 
be suddenly thrust upon any peace-loving 
country, in spite of its sincere and earnest 
desire to avoid it. Unless it is disposed to 
sacrifice every interest, to forego every priv- 
ilege, and to renounce every right — which a 
nation incapable of defending itself may be 
compelled to do — it must not only resist 

172 



AMERICANISM AND WORLD POLITICS 

the beginnings of aggression, but must be 
prepared to do so with success. 

Such preparation is opposed by those who 
dislike the idea of armed defense, on the 
ground that it tends toward the further de- 
velopment of "Militarism," which is repug- 
nant to them. But what is it in "Militar- 
ism" that is repugnant, if it is not the arbi- 
trary domination of others, and the aug- 
mentation of force for this purpose ? When, 
on the other hand, the purpose is to resist 
such domination, and to establish and main- 
tain a reign of law, in opposition to a reign 
of terror, does not the opprobrium which the 
word "Militarism" is intended to convey 
wholly disappear? Or shall we carry the 
sentiment of non-resistance to such an ex- 
treme as to condemn altogether the armed 
defense of the great principles of equity and 
humanity against arbitrary force and ruth- 
less aggression? 

173 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

THE NECESSITY OF NATIONAL STRENGTH 

It is not desirable, and happily it is not 
necessary, to attempt an analysis of the 
motives and policies of the different govern- 
ments now engaged in deadly conflict. Such 
an attempt would inevitably lead to con- 
troversy at a moment when our supreme 
need is a statement of facts and principles 
that is incontrovertible. If we are not to be 
weakened by division, we must all unite in 
taking our stand upon a foundation so solid 
that it cannot be shaken, so broad that it 
will afford room for every true American 
to stand upon it, and so high that it will 
lift us all above race sympathies, sectional 
advantages, personal interests, and all the 
mephitic fogs and mists of mutual suspicion 
and distrust. 

If we are to be influential at the council 
board of nations, it is necessary that we 

174 



AMERICANISM AND WORLD POLITICS 

should be strong, and if we are to be strong 
it is essential that we should be united. Un- 
less we are ignobly disposed to shrink from 
our duty to make our words and our rights 
respected in the world, we must all, with- 
out distinction of race sympathies or party 
attachments, ask ourselves what it is neces- 
sary to do to maintain our rights as 
a nation, on land and sea, and to secure 
the permanent safety of our free institu- 
tions. 



AN AMERICAN PLATFORM OF PRINCIPLES 

Eliminating from discussion, therefore, 
all that does not concern us as a nation, let 
us confine our attention to that which is 
vital to our national existence. 

There are certain fundamental principles 
which all thoughtful American citizens unite 
in accepting. Among these are the proposi- 

175 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

tions: that government should exist for the 
sake of the governed; that a just govern- 
ment is based upon the equal rights of all 
the people to life, liberty and the pursuit 
of happiness; that, in consequence, govern- 
ments, in their relation to one another, 
should recognize these rights; and that all 
governments, with due respect for the prin- 
ciples of humanity, should regulate their! 
conduct by just laws, freely accepted and 
faithfully observed. 

This simple creed needs no enlargement, 
and no argumentative justification. It is 
a platform of world politics upon which all 
American citizens, irrespective of their an- 
cestral origin or their partisan preferences, 
may unite. These doctrines are at once our 
birthright and a sacred trust. They are 
the lodestone that has attracted the op 
pressed of all nations to these shores. The} 
have made us a great, a prosperous, and a 

176 




AMERICANISM AND WORLD POLITICS 

mighty people. No true American wishes 
to withdraw allegiance to them, or would 
hesitate to shed the last drop of his blood in 
defense of them, if they were menaced with 
destruction. 



OPPOSITION TO AMERICAN PRINCIPLES 

It has been our custom, as a people, to 
give to these principles all possible support 
upon all occasions. We have done so in 
China, in Cuba, and in the Philippines, 
w r here we have taken in tutelage a popula- 
tion in its political childhood and conscien- 
tiously striven to lay the foundations for its 
future self-government. We have stood for 
these principles, and for the judicial settle- 
ment of international differences, in the two 
general conferences at The Hague. We 
have from the beginning favored the exemp- 
tion from capture of all innocent private 
13 177 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

property at sea, even the private property 
of persons belonging to a belligerent na- 
tion. Equity and humanity have been 
the watchwords of our diplomacy, and at 
every opportunity we have pleaded for 
them. 

But we have been as a voice crying in 
the wilderness. On one point or another, 
nearly the whole world has been against us ; 
and there is every prospect that it will con- 
tinue to be against us in our endeavor to 
carry out our entire program of neutral 
rights. 

When we descend from the realm of 
ideals to the arena of reality, we find that 
the rights of peoples have nowhere been re- 
spected, except where they were defended 
by force of arms; that solemn compacts are 
everywhere imperiled by the lust for con- 
quest; that weakness and wealth are every- 
where the designated prey of depredation; 

178 



AMERICANISM AND WORLD POLITICS 

that even alleged democracies are sometimes 
inspired by predatory instincts; that whole 
empires have been built up of territorial loot ; 
and that "government of the people, for 
the people, and by the people" exists only 
where it is well defended. The one active, 
aggressive principle in world politics is the 
spirit of Imperialism. It has raised its flag 
upon every island of every sea and ocean. 
It has partitioned Africa and converted it 
into a patchwork of European colonies. It 
has prepared new maps of Asia and even of 
America, and only withholds them from pub- 
lication until the troops shall have taken 
possession. Its watchword is "dominion" — 
dominion by whatever means may be needed 
to make it possible. Its tentacles are battle- 
ships and expeditionary forces that seize the 
prey which forts and garrisons afterward 
render digestible. 

179 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 
THE LEAGUE- TO ENFORCE PEACE 

Before the outbreak of the present world 
conflict, it was difficult, even in the face of 
the palpable evidence, to make honest men in 
America believe this. Even now our paci- 
fist friends accept with reluctance the un- 
palatable truth. But they are at last be- 
ginning to realize that the appetite for 
dominion and the ideals of justice are still 
in conflict; and that, in the presence of 42- 
centimeter cannon, machine guns, en- 
trenched riflemen, and the tempest of deadly 
gases, their reasoning, however logical, is 
ineffectual. The most earnest among them 
have come to the unexpected conclusion 
that, if peace is to prevail upon the earth, 
arbitrary resort to violence must be re- 
strained by organized armed resistance. 

The present phase of pacifist evolution is 
embodied in the "League to Enforce 

180 



AMERICANISM AND WORLD POLITICS 

Peace"; that is, to impose and compel it by 
force of arms. 

Regarded in the abstract, the proposal is 
plausible. It is, however, plainly a retreat 
from the position that universal peace can 
be attained, in the present condition of the 
world, by mere treaties and conventions. It 
is a recognition of the fact that peace-loving 
peoples have no other security against ag- 
gression than their means of armed defense. 
A union of their forces for the maintenance 
of international justice would, undoubtedly, 
be of great utility; but the project involves 
considerations which require to be carefully 
examined. 

THE INCOMPATIBILITY OF IMPERIALISM AND 
DEMOCRACY 

In view of the fact that the imperial and 
the democratic conceptions of international 
relations are fundamentally different, is jt 

181 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

possible for these two elements to unite for 
the enforcement of peace ? Empires and re- 
publics may, indeed, enter into offensive and 
defensive alliances, in which they bind them- 
selves to act together where their common in- 
terests are affected; but can they agree to 
make war upon each other in case either of 
them fails to postpone action for a year 
while a dispute or an insult is under con- 
sideration? Is it probable that any imperial 
Power, seeing its plans frustrated by another 
Power, would tamely submit the question at 
issue to arbitration, or await the advice of 
neutral judges whose conclusion was likely 
to be adverse? Would it give its antagonist 
a year in which to prepare for opposing it 
in case the verdict should finally be that it 
was entitled to vindicate its position by force 
of arms? An affirmative answer to these 
questions would involve the assumption that 
the imperialistic conception of the State is 

182 



AMERICANISM AND WORLD POLITICS 

to be suddenly abandoned — of which we 
have not the slightest evidence. 

Is it, on the other hand, presumable, that 
a republic would act wisely if it subordi- 
nated its own judgment to the decision of 
imperial Powers; or, if it entered into a 
compact with them to engage in future wars 
without knowing beforehand what they 
might involve; much less, if it entirely sur- 
rendered its own means of self-defense by 
placing itself under the protection of an in- 
ternational army that might, through some 
perversion of justice, act against it? 



THE RELATION OF PEACE TO JUSTICE 

But there is another consideration upon 
which it is necessary to reflect in cherishing 
the aspiration of universal peace. It is that 
universal peace is an abstract idea that has 
no moral value apart from concrete ques- 

183 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

tions of right and wrong, which this pro- 
posal admits cannot in every instance be set- 
tled without preponderant force. What na- 
tion can be expected to set up as its highest 
ideal the mere negative notion of universal 
peace, until its liberty is achieved, until it 
no longer needs to be defended, or while 
the rights of humanity are anywhere tram- 
pled in the dust? Such a decision would 
leave the world a victim to every outrage, 
and mark the abject degeneration of man- 
kind. 

No, there can be no such thing as uni- 
versal peace until there is universal justice 
in the world ; and there ought not to be. 

What we American citizens need to be 
thinking about is, not how to pacify the 
world — which will go on fighting as long 
as there is something wrong to fight about — 
but how to show the world that there is at 
least one country where the ideal of human 

184 



AMERICANISM AND WORLD POLITICS 

rights is placed above passive acquiescence 
in the demands of brute force, and that there 
is one citizenship that carries with it a na- 
tional protection that must be reckoned with. 



THE RELATION OF PEACE TO FORCE 

One thing is certain. Peace can never 
be insured while brigandage and imperial 
conquest are profitable forms of business. 
It can never be permanently established un- 
til the lust for loot and conquest is con- 
fronted with an armed resistance that makes 
it too hazardous to be a paying enterprise. 
When that is fully realized, like piracy on 
the high seas and other forms of illicit ac- 
quisitiveness, these forms of depredation will 
be effectually suppressed. Nothing but 
armed force under civil authority can make 
that condition real. 

It is illusory to believe that innocence and 
185 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

self-effacement afford protection to a weak 
nation. The whole world knows that we 
have no aggressive designs or intentions. 
But will that protect us from insult and in- 
jury? The use of high-sounding menaces, 
alternated with professions of friendship 
that are believed not to be sincere, is a dan- 
gerous pastime for a nation that is weak, 
divided, and impotent for action. The fact 
that its people are horrified, offended, and 
yet so devoted to peace as not to express 
frankly their convictions, adds nothing to 
their safety. Europe is paying very little 
attention to us now, but how many friends 
shall we have, and how much consideration 
shall we expect, when, pacified and har- 
monized, it turns its attention to us? 

THE TRADITIONAL AMERICAN ATTITUDE 

In the past it has been our liberties and 
our free institutions, and not our personal 

186 



AMERICANISM AND WORLD POLITICS 

interests, that have been made the objects of 
our chief solicitude. We have never feared 
to express our S) r mpathies with downtrodden 
peoples. It is surprising that it has required 
the suggestion that we might have to face 
new dangers, in order to awaken our inter- 
est in the international situation. Let us 
not forget that international law — by 
which we have always understood interna- 
tional justice — is our law, to which we can- 
not be indifferent. Whoever violates it, in- 
directly injures us, as well as all mankind. 
An attack upon it is an attack upon civili- 
zation ; and it would mark a deplorable state 
of moral degeneration, if we had not the 
courage to take our stand for it, with- 
out fear of consequences, whatever they 
might be. 

It is not invasion that we have to fear 
the most — God forbid that we should ever 
become so supine as to wait for that! — it 

187 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

is our right of innocent passage and of in- 
nocent commerce on a free ocean, and the 
invisible bulwarks of liberty and self-govern- 
ment on this continent, that should engage 
our thought. From the foundation of our 
government we have always in the past, and 
sometimes under great difficulties, defended 
these rights and these bulwarks. We have 
not waited to be invaded, we have aimed at 
making invasion a dangerous enterprise. In 
the great emergencies, our fathers, usually 
without due preparation for meeting them, 
have fearlessly responded to the demands of 
national duty. "When, in our weakness, the 
so-called "Holy Alliance' 5 was preparing 
to reduce to colonial dependence the Amer- 
ican republics that had thrown off the yoke 
of Spain, their voice was lifted up in pro- 
test,, and the protest was heard and heeded. 
When Louis Xapoleon sent an Austrian 
Archduke to establish an empire upon our 

188 



AMERICANISM AND WORLD POLITICS 

borders in Mexico, the voice of protest was 
again uttered, and the undisbanded army 
that had saved the Union was ready, if nec- 
essary, to march for the defense of our 
neighbor against imperial subjugation. 

THE FEAR OF MILITARISM 

All the arguments that have been ad- 
vanced against "Militarism" as an impend- 
ing danger in the United States might with 
equal justice be urged against "Patriot- 
ism." There is no voice in America lifted 
for a military regime. All our instincts, all 
our habits, all our interests, and, above all, 
our conception of the nature of the State, 
are against it. We are not a military people. 
We have no military projects. We are, as 
a people, hostile to military rule. Our 
armies, however small, have never, except in 
great crises, risen to their normal propor- 

189 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

tion. When the crises have passed, officers 
and men, with thankfulness that their ser- 
vices were no longer needed, have silently 
melted into our busy civil population as 
flakes of snow drop into the sea. 

Not one of our great soldiers — Washing- 
ton, Grant, Sherman, or anyone in the long 
list of their associates— has ever favored 
"Militarism." It is not in the character and 
temper of our people to permit it, either 
from without or from within. But it is in 
no respect a drift toward "Militarism" to 
say that every able-bodied young man in 
our country should first be well instructed 
in the meaning and value of our free insti- 
tutions, and taught a wholesome respect for 
civil authority, and then be impressed with 
the privilege and obligation of a full prepa- 
ration of mind and body to defend them. A 
resolute determination to do this would not 
only cause any Power to reflect long before 

190 



AMERICANISM AND WORLD POLITICS 

it would disregard the rights of American 
citizens, but it would elevate and ennoble the 
tone of the present and the coming genera- 
tions of American youth. Wholly apart 
from any dangers, on land or sea, we need 
the ethical influence of an enlightened pa- 
triotism. 

Yes, let us take for our motto, "America 
First": not with the meaning of a dominat- 
ing primacy over others, but in the sense of 
leadership in making human life safer, 
human endeavor loftier, human suffering 
less cruel, human toil more equitably re- 
warded, and human fraternity more real, 
more noble, and more sincere. We have a 
part to play in the redemption of humanity 
and the better organization of the world. 
Let us pla3^ it without being too proud for 
the performance of any duty, and above all 
let us play it without fear. 



VI 

THE DUTY OF NATIONAL 
DEFENSE 



14 



VI 

THE DUTY OF NATIONAL DEFENSE 

If we are to discuss with profit the sub- 
ject of national defense, it is necessary to 
eliminate from the discussion all topics that 
have no decisive relation to it. This is very 
difficult to do, for the reason that our minds 
are incumbered by many considerations that 
may influence action, and yet have no real 
bearing upon a decision which circumstances 
render necessary and inevitable. More than 
anything else, we require a preparation of 
mind that will enable us to face, to consider, 
and to act upon the question of national de- 
fense with a clear vision of immediate duty, 

SOME IRRELEVANT PROPOSITIONS 

We are constantly reminded that war is 
a horrible scourge which, if possible, we 

195 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

ought by all honorable means to avoid ; that 
the killing of man by man is unworthy of 
his nobler nature; that, if armament were 
totally abandoned, sanguinary war would 
become impossible; that great armies and 
navies impose enormous burdens of taxation 
upon a country that supports them; that 
money expended upon them might profit- 
ably be used in education, in scientific re- 
search, and in alleviating suffering; that pre- 
ponderant force does not necessarily insure 
perfect justice; that the proper mode of set- 
tling international disputes is arbitration; 
that the nations should organize an obliga- 
tory international tribunal and submit their 
differences to it; that an international 
police force would serve all the purposes 
of public peace and order ; and, finally, that, 
by adopting principles of justice and fra- 
ternity, war would be rendered entirely un- 
necessary. 

196 



THE DUTY OF NATIONAL DEFENSE 
THE REAL QUESTION STATED 

Few of us would be disposed to dispute 
any one of these general propositions, and 
it may be that every one of them is capable 
of a conclusive demonstration. The impor- 
tant point, however, is that they have no 
bearing upon the concrete question: Should 
this nation, at this time, be prepared to de- 
fend its territory from invasion, its people 
from robbery and murder, its neutral rights 
of commerce on the high seas, and its priv- 
ilege of speaking its mind freely and with- 
out fear concerning the rights of human- 
ity? 

It is to be desired, therefore, that, in dis- 
cussing a great question of national policy, 
there may be no attempt to confuse thought 
or deflect it from its proper object by an 
appeal to our sensibilities, or by an intima- 
tion that those who favor efficient national 

197 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

defense are less mindful than others of the 
highest aims and aspirations of our human 
nature. We may all join most heartily, as 
some of us have labored long and assidu- 
ously, in pleading for universal justice and, 
if it is possible, universal peace. For my 
own part, I do not doubt that there is a 
highway that leads to peace, but I believe 
it passes through the narrow gateway of in- 
ternational justice. Until these aspirations 
for peace and justice, in which we all share, 
are fully realized, we shall continue to be 
confronted by problems of national duty 
which cannot be honorably disregarded, 

OUR PRIMARY NATIONAL OBLIGATION 

It results from the American conception 
of the State, that the primary obligation of 
the American Government is the protection 
of the lives and the property of American 

198 



THE DUTY OF NATIONAL DEFENSE 

citizens, wherever they may be in the in- 
nocent pursuit of their legitimate busi- 
ness. 

The duty of the State to protect the rights 
of its citizens is the corner-stone of Amer- 
ican Democracy. It is for that that the 
State exists, and it is from the intention to 
render it possible that the State derives the 
justification of its existence. Our whole po- 
litical edifice rests upon that foundation, 
and we cannot consistently permit it to be 
questioned. It is asserted with emphasis in 
the Preamble to the Federal Constitution 
as a principal object of our more perfect 
Union; which is, iri its very nature, a pro- 
vision "for the common defense," not pri- 
marily of the separate States, but of the peo- 
ple of the United States, in whose name 
the Federal Government is created. It is 
for that purpose that "taxes, duties, imports, 
and excises" are laid and collected from the 

199 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

people; and it is in addition to this duty of 
protecting the individual citizen that, in a 
separate article of the Constitution, the 
United States guarantees "to every State in 
this Union a Republican form of govern- 
ment," and that it will "protect each of them 
against invasion." 

If our Government has become negligent 
of this primary obligation, and if absorp- 
tion in their own private affairs has ren- 
dered any of our fellow-citizens oblivious of 
it or indifferent regarding it, there is occa- 
sion for alarm at the national degeneration 
which such dereliction and apathy would 
imply. 

It may, indeed, involve some trouble and 
expense to safeguard American life and 
property in semi-barbarous countries and 
upon the high seas which are the common 
highway of the nations; but this incon- 
venience cannot exempt our Government 

200 



THE DUTY OF NATIONAL DEFENSE 

from its obligation to protect the rights of 
its citizens. 



THE FRUITS OF THE NEW POLITICS 

It would be intolerable that it should ever 
be advanced, as an excuse for such delin- 
quency, that, being weak, or poor, or help- 
less, or already dead, any of our fellow-citi- 
zens should be made a vicarious sacrifice to 
preserve our peace as a nation; and that, in 
the interest of the nation as a whole, the 
wrongs inflicted upon them should be con- 
cealed, or glossed over, or forgotten. 

Such a course would betray a depth of 
moral degradation in our public and private 
life that should fill the mind of every Amer- 
ican with shame for his country. 

And yet, would not such neglect to exer- 
cise protection be a strictly logical position 
to be supported by everyone who rejects the 

201 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

fundamental American doctrine that the in- 
dividual citizen possesses inherent and in- 
alienable rights which government may not 
ignore, and which majorities may not over- 
ride? If human rights are merely the gifts 
of government, and exist only where there 
is express legislation conferring them, what 
right has the citizen to complain, if his gov- 
ernment refuses to protect him when it 
finds it inconvenient to do so ? And, if nat- 
ural rights do not exist, if rights are what 
the majority pleases to make them, without 
restriction, why may not a few unfortunate 
citizens be consistently sacrificed for the 
peace of the country? Why should the con- 
tented and prosperous people of the United 
States — a hundred millions of them — be 
menaced with the risks and costs of war in 
defending the alleged rights of a paltry hun- 
dred American men, women, and little chil- 
dren, shot through and blown to fragments, 

202 



THE DUTY OF NATIONAL DEFENSE 

or drowned without even an attempt at res- 
cue, when innocentfy sailing upon the high 
seas on a non-combatant vessel? And why 
should a great government like ours trouble 
itself about other hundreds of American 
citizens, driven from their homes and 
slaughtered on their way to safety, some of 
them even upon the soil of their own 
country, at the hands of Mexican cut- 
throats ? 

Undoubtedly, the new political philoso- 
phy, phases of which have been discussed 
in the previous chapters of this book, fully 
justifies the conclusion that, since majori- 
ties possess unlimited rights, and minorities 
none except those generously accorded to 
them by the will of the majority, the only 
recourse for an American citizen is quietly 
to abandon in advance any right he may 
hitherto have supposed himself to possess, 
and accept with submission and thankful- 

203 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

ness any lot which superior force may gra- 
ciously apportion out to him. 



THE DOMINANCE OF ECONOMIC THINKING 

If this were really the disposition of our 
people, it would be superfluous to continue 
a discussion regarding national defense. If 
the spirit of the American people is so broken 
by sybarite living and socialistic dreams that 
they are no longer regardful of one another's 
inherent rights, and do not even admit their 
existence; if a sham altruism has been cul- 
tivated to a point where the individual really 
counts for nothing, it would seem that there 
would be no valid objection to letting an 
enemy take possession of us; for, perhaps, 
his presence would beat into our dulled 
moral consciousness some faint reminiscence 
of American manhood. 

But this supposition cannot be accepted. 
204 



THE DUTY OF NATIONAL DEFENSE 

The truth is, we are awakening from a cata- 
leptic state. We have concentrated our at- 
tention upon our material condition until 
we have been hypnotized by it. We have 
come to consider all things from a purely 
economic point of view. We cannot afford 
military preparation, because it is too ex- 
pensive. The most effective arguments em- 
ployed against it are economic. It would, 
it is complained, increase taxation, create 
useless industries, deflect labor and capital 
from greater utilities, continue indefinitely 
to demand increased appropriations for a 
greater army and navy; and, what is most 
important, the money spent on such prepara- 
tion could be more wisely expended upon 
good roads, scientific experimentation, edu- 
cation, or some form of public philanthropy. 
Have we then unconsciously degenerated 
into mere instruments of economic calcula- 
tion, and become a race of animated cash 

205 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

registers? How otherwise is it possible to 
confront a primary obligation with the ques- 
tion: What will it cost? We might, it is 
conceded, protect American life and prop- 
erty, if it could be done with less expense, 
or on some cut-rate plan, where there would 
be a financial return; or if, for example, we 
could be assured that Mexico would not be 
more formidable than Haiti. But if prepa- 
ration for national defense is to require any 
proportionally great sum, and especially if 
it is likely ever to draw us into a defensive 
war, would it not be better, suggests the ob- 
jector, to maintain an attitude of peace re- 
gardless of all indignities; or at least to 
postpone active preparation for defense un- 
til we are actually attacked ? And thus, vol- 
untarily closing our eyes to the actual dan- 
gers in which we are placed and the duty to 
face them, the nation pauses to debate its 
course, like a boy going to a country fair 

206 



THE DUTY OF NATIONAL DEFENSE 

with a shilling in his pocket and wondering 
how he can get the most gratification for 
his money. 



THE INFLUENCE OF PACIFISM 

For this state of mind the pacifist propa- 
ganda in this country is in some degree re- 
sponsible. It has tended to conceal the sor- 
did motives of the opponents of defensive 
preparation under a garb of moral senti- 
ment. Great organizations, richly endowed 
and conducted by able men, have filled the 
land with literature condemning war in all 
its aspects; proclaiming not only its exces- 
sive cost, but its cruelty, its inutility, and 
its criminal character. Exhortations to dis- 
arm or to limit armament have been sent 
broadcast throughout the country and 
throughout the world. Although little ef- 
fect has been produced anywhere, except in 

207 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

the United States, here a general conviction 
has been produced among our people that 
war is under all circumstances to be avoided. 
Eloquent speakers and popular writers had 
assured us, before the present European con- 
flict, that war had become virtually impos- 
sible; and the conclusion was drawn that 
preparation even for national defense was 
not only useless but would fatally compro- 
mise ourselves as a peace-loving nation, and 
the cause of universal peace. 

So long as this movement remained a 
purely philanthropic enterprise, appealing 
to the good will of men everywhere, in the 
endeavor to persuade all nations to employ 
judicial rather than military methods in 
reconciling their differences, it deserved, 
and, in fact, received, almost unanimous ap- 
proval in the United States. Only one criti- 
cism was passed upon it. It was pointed 
out that the emphasis should not be placed 

208 



THE DUTY OF NATIONAL DEFENSE 

upon peace but upon justice. These great 
endowments, it was suggested, were wast- 
ing their energies in advocating futile pro- 
jects of disarmament, of whose success there 
was no prospect ; and it was urged that they 
should consecrate themselves to universal 
justice rather than to universal peace, on 
the ground that peace without justice is im- 
possible. Even if it were possible, it would 
mark the end of ethical purpose in the world. 

THE EFFECTS OF POLITICAL PACIFISM 

When at length antagonism to prepara- 
tion for the military defense of the country 
took on the form of influencing legislation 
adversely to it, what had been in the main 
a commendable movement became a source 
of public peril. It was at this point that 
political pacifism had its birth. Philan- 
thropic pacifism had become the best organ- 
is 209 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

ized, the best financed, and the most strenu- 
ous political influence in the country. A 
speech in favor of battleships was likely to 
occasion the loss of a seat in Congress. The 
favor of the great peace organizations had 
become a factor affecting political success. 

The officers of our Government were not 
slow in recognizing the force of the new in- 
fluence. Arbitration treaties, with no re- 
serve of honor or vital interests, became pop- 
ular. Even these did not satisfy the ultra- 
pacifist evangelists. War must be made im- 
possible. Delay of action must be imposed 
to an extent that deprived it of all value. 

Serious and experienced men, familiar 
with world conditions, were astonished at 
these adventures, and mild remonstrances 
were offered; but in vain. The country 
was behind these commitments, and the 
Nobel Prize invited preeminence in the pious 
task of promoting peace. 

210 



THE DUTY OF NATIONAL DEFENSE 

Having once entered practical politics, the 
peace movement was soon made openly of- 
ficial. Treaties multiplied, and in the pre- 
liminaries to every one of them it was an- 
nounced that the United States was deter- 
mined to avoid war. Great and small, the 
nations were bidden by our Government to 
the banquet-board of peace. One high of- 
ficial is reported to have declared that while 
he remained in office there would be no war. 



THE LOSS OF NATIONAL PRESTIGE 

There was, of course, nothing evil in these 
pacific intentions; but there was a lament- 
able ignorance of the effect they were cer- 
tain to produce. We have already had suf- 
ficient proofs of it. 

It required only consistency in conform- 
ing to this "high ideal" of international con- 
duct, to establish the conviction in foreign 

211 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

countries that the Government of the United 
States not only did not want war, but was 
afraid of war, and was determined to avoid 
war, no matter what the circumstances might 
be. In June, 1914, the present writer was 
told by one of the most experienced diplo- 
matists in Europe, himself a tried and true 
friend of peace, and a life-long advocate of 
every good cause: "Your country has com- 
pletely lost its former international prestige 
by its conduct in regard to Mexico. I do 
not see how it can ever recover it, unless it 
is prepared for action; and disposed, if nec- 
essary, to act with vigor. Your querulous 
tone, unsupported by firm resolution, de- 
prives the United States of all its former 
influence. You are drifting into the atti- 
tude of a scolding old woman!" 

If it were not just, it would be a duty 
to resent this rebuke ; but can we dispute the 
justice of it? We have simply been taken at 

212 



THE DUTY OF NATIONAL DEFENSE 

our word that, no matter what happens, 
there is to be no war. Had our attitude been : 
We seek the conditions of peace ; but this na- 
tion cannot and will not remain friendly 
toward any nation that does not treat its 
citizens justly; and we shall everywhere, 
with all our resources, protect their lives 
and property — the situation might have been 
different. No one would then have decided 
to treat us with indignity without first think- 
ing it over very seriously. As it is, in- 
dignities have been deliberately planned and 
deliberately executed with the belief that, 
while we might discuss them, we would not 
openly declare that friendship with those who 
could purposely inflict such wrongs upon our 
fellow-citizens was no longer possible. And 
thus our excessive zeal for peace and our 
inadequate sense of obligation to our own 
citizens have brought us first into humilia- 
tion, and finally into a confession of our 

213 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

helplessness; for we have felt resentment 
which we could not satisfy, and we have wit- 
nessed the spectacle of the President of the 
United States leaving the capital and mak- 
ing a tour of the country, in order tardily 
to inform the people that he could not pre- 
serve both peace and honor unless they 
gave him a new mandate and additional 
means of action through their representa- 
tives in Congress. If the means are not 
furnished, the inference will undoubtedly 
be that peace is upon all occasions to take 
precedence over honor. 

AN UNRECOGNIZED SOURCE OF DANGER 

Hitherto we have paid but little attention 
in this country to the plans, and purposes, 
and spirit of other nations. We have 
proudly imagined ourselves a "World- 
Power," without considering whether or not 

214 



THE DUTY OF NATIONAL DEFENSE 

we have become a world-potency. We have 
all the fresh confidence of youth, but have 
not yet acquired the wisdom that usually 
comes with age. 

One lesson that we have yet to learn is 
that no nation can pursue an arbitrary pol- 
icy of its own without regard to the policies 
of other nations, unless it is stronger than 
any probable coalition that may sometime 
be arrayed against it. There are, in diplo- 
matic crises, but three alternatives: to be 
able to stand alone with undisputed prim- 
acy; to join with others in that which others 
will agree may be done ; or to stand aside in 
impotence, if not in humiliation, and allow 
others to work their will. 

There are always more reasons for peace 
than there are for war; but, when the pas- 
sions of a nation take the place of farseeing 
statecraft, or the weakness of a nation in- 
vites aggression, a very bad reason may ulti- 

215 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

mately prove more decisive for war than all 
the good reasons for peace. There are con- 
ditions which a proud people, even though 
devoted to peace, will not endure; and the 
greatest of all dangers is that a people un- 
prepared to assert its will may suddenly de- 
mand what it cannot execute. 

So long as a nation is considered a force 
to be reckoned with, its voice of warning 
will be listened to; but when it is believed 
that it has no policies which it will resolutely 
defend, it ceases to be of international im- 
portance. If its opinion of itself and the 
opinion of others regarding it are widely 
different, it traverses a moment of supreme 
danger; for in the eyes of others it has be- 
come offensive without possessing the ability 
to defend itself. Its wealth, however great, 
unless it is capable of prompt transforma- 
tion into military efficiency, affords it no 
protection from aggression ; for the sole pur- 

216 



THE DUTY OF NATIONAL DEFENSE 

pose of assault may be the extortion of a 
future advantage to be enforced in the terms 
of peace. 



OUR FIRST LINE OF DEFENSE 

Our first line of national defense is not, 
as we are sometimes told, our navy; it is 
our diplomacy. Diplomacy is to a nation 
what the senses are to the human body. 
It is its function to warn the govern- 
ment of the impending dangers, and to 
enable it to perceive how to meet them. 
If our diplomacy be casual, fluctuating, 
negligent, or without instruction, it will 
afford us no protection. On the contrary, 
it may betray us in the midst of unseen 
perils. 

For the greater part of our existence as 
a nation, we have dwelt in comparative re- 
moteness from European conflicts; but the 

217 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

development of oceanic transportation has 
abolished our geographic isolation. The 
mastery of the sea has made all nations 
neighbors. We possess no natural defenses. 
We have a widely extended territory, with 
many thousands of miles of accessible coast- 
line on two oceans. We must not forget 
that we have assumed the responsibilities of 
a World-Power, with insular dependencies, 
an isthmian canal, sea-borne commerce on 
every sea, fellow-citizens engaged in legiti- 
mate business and, sometimes, of national 
importance, in every civilized and many 
semi-barbarous countries. Are we, by some 
incantation of pure idealism, to dispense our- 
selves as a nation from the obligation to act 
with full knowledge of what is going on 
in the world, and how our interests are to 
be affected by it ? But, unless we are served 
by intelligent and vigilant diplomacy, we 
shall continue, however great our national 

218 



THE DUTY OF NATIONAL DEFENSE 

resources may be, to remain unprepared to 
meet future emergencies. 



OUR SPECIAL AMERICAN INTERESTS 

There has been developed on this conti- 
nent a system of self-government based on 
the inherent and inalienable rights of the in- 
dividual man. It is an inheritance which 
has cost much heroism to establish and main- 
tain. When Europe is reaching out for 
world dominion, with thoroughly equipped 
armies composed of millions of men; when 
Asia is marked for future subdivision, and 
already subject to foreign spheres of in- 
fluence ; when the map of Africa has become 
a maze of European colonies; when every 
island of every sea is a pawn in the game of 
empire; when many of the American re- 
publics are regarded as legitimate fields of 
imperial exploitation, and are themselves 

219 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

comparatively defenseless, may we reason- 
ably expect that we can preserve our boasted 
Democracy, if we have no means of offer- 
ing it protection? 

It is highly probable that if Europe were 
at peace today we should have a European 
question in Mexico tomorrow. It must not 
be overlooked that we are not the only ones 
who have suffered from the continued state 
of revolution in that country. Our Govern- 
ment has seen reasons satisfactory to itself 
in the midst of extraordinary provocations 
to pursue a policy of passive delay rather 
than one of energetic action. I shall not 
here discuss that policy; but the end is not 
yet. Whether revolution be suppressed or 
not, when Europe is ready to act in Mexico, 
that country will have to face the demand 
for the payment of obligations created by 
the Huerta Government, which here has 
been declared to be no government, but 

220 



THE DUTY OF NATIONAL DEFENSE 

which in Europe has been not only aided 
and trusted, but regularly recognized. 

THE NEED OF A CLEAR FOREIGN POLICY 

If we are to avoid future complications, 
it will be necessary to frame and to unite 
upon a foreign policy that we can maintain. 
What should such a policy be? 

It will necessarily have a negative and a , 
positive character. On the negative side, we 
do not desire to annex any foreign territory ; 
we do not entertain any schemes of con- 
quest; we do not wish to meddle with the 
internal affairs of our neighbors ; we do not 
aim at acquiring exclusive concessions in 
foreign countries; we do not intend to im- 
pose our authority anywhere where a re- 
sponsible government exists. 

On the positive side, we desire to have 
peace with all nations based on justice, hon- 

221 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

or, and respect for treaties; we object to 
the armed intervention of Europe in the 
affairs of this continent; we expect that 
claims upon the American republics will 
be judicially adjudicated before they are 
enforced; we demand, and will require, the 
recognition of our right of innocent com- 
merce on the high seas ; we shall insist upon 
respect for American lives and property* 
everywhere ; we shall recognize any de facto 
government that protects these rights within 
its actual jurisdiction, and shall confide in 
no government that is incapable of such pro- 
tection; we are prepared to negotiate con- 
ventions for the firmer establishment of in- 
ternational justice, but we shall enter into 
no formal alliances or any agreement bind- 
ing us to make war upon any nation, or in 
the interest of any nation, but shall hold our- 
selves free by concurrent action with others 
to pursue a common end of preserving peace 

222 



THE DUTY OF NATIONAL DEFENSE 

and procuring conformity to international 
law. 

Are we capable of maintaining such a pol- 
icy? If we are to do so, we must be strong 
enough to make it advantageous to any na- 
tion raising a controversy with us to respect 
our position. 

THE PRESENT INTERNATIONAL PROBLEM 

It has been pressed home upon us that 
the great present problem of civilization is, 
and will be until it is solved, the suppression 
of violence by barbarous bands and imperial 
designs, and the establishment of equal rights 
among the nations, great and small, under 
a reign of law. The most important ques- 
tion civilization has to answer is : How can 
that problem be solved? And we shall have 
to perform our part in answering it. 

When the American people have had time 
223 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

to realize the character and extent of the 
emergency our age is called upon to meet — 
and the moment for action admits of no de- 
lay — their decision cannot be doubtful. The 
call to duty may require sacrifices, but we 
shall be a nobler people for making them. 

The American people will never tolerate 
the formation of an irresponsible fighting 
machine, whose chief object is efficiency in 
the art of killing men, and whose chief pas- 
sion is a desire for its own glory. What 
they will demand will be a body of trained 
citizen-defenders of their country, thor- 
oughly permeated with its spirit and ideals, 
and devoted to carrying out its pacific pol- 
icies. 

THE ATTITUDE OF OUR YOUNG MEN 

This signifies that, in addition to a na- 
tional policy and an organized force, prepa- 
ration must be made for the education of the 

224 



THE DUTY OF NATIONAL DEFENSE 

citizen-soldier in the meaning and duties of 
citizenship. Such education must be of the 
mind, the body, the will and the character. 
It should include the manual of arms and 
the discipline of the camp. 

A million young men during the present 
year will, for the first time, have a voice 
in determining the destinies of the United 
States. What will their attitude be? Will 
they not, in the conscious strength of their 
manhood and with a sense of their new re- 
sponsibility, say to one another: Let us 
make of the constitutional system of fed- 
erated States embodied in the American Re- 
public a bulwark, an example, and a ground 
of hope for the future of the world? Will 
they not say to the rest of mankind: We 
in America have stood for the dominion of 
law, for a world tribunal, for the sanctity 
of treaties, for the rights of neutrals, and 
for the inviolability of innocent persons. 
16 225 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

We have discouraged armament and sought 
to accomplish its limitation both by precept 
and example. Now we say to you, if you 
are going on with it, if you are intending 
to overpower helpless peoples and to domi- 
nate the world by brute force, you at least 
shall not dominate over us. If armament 
is to be continued, if human rights are to 
be disregarded, and force is to rule the world, 
we are ready to stand where our fathers 
stood, and we shall see to it that there is 
one country where reason and conscience, 
liberty and law, shall be secure. 

THE NECESSITY OF NATIONAL IDEALS 

It is its ideals that make a nation truly 
great. It will be the ideals entertained by 
our people, and especially by our young 
men, in the present world crisis that will 
determine the destinies of the United States. 

226 



THE DUTY OF NATIONAL DEFENSE 

What then are the ideals that really ap- 
peal to us? 

We have shown in recent times a deep in- 
terest in social progress. We have been im- 
patient of the impediments, real or apparent, 
to greater equity in American life. It can- 
not be doubted that there is among the 
younger generation in our country, and in 
every part of it, a vigorous growth of ethical 
feeling — a more ardent love of justice and 
fair play. We have been disposed some- 
times, in our reaction from existing evils, to 
find fault with our political institutions, and 
have wished if necessary to substitute others 
for them. But, when we come to think it 
over, is it our institutions, or is it our ma- 
terial conceptions of life, that are at fault? 
Let us frankly ask ourselves if we should 
all be entirely content, on condition that all 
our fellow-citizens were well housed, well 
clothed, well fed, and agreeably amused, if, 

227 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

at the same time, we were obliged to con- 
fess that, as a nation, we were weak, sordid, 
and afraid? 



THE NATION'S DUTY TO THE FUTURE 

Do we not realize that we need, as a peo- 
ple, a more powerful tonic than can be found 
in any of the paltry nostrums dispensed by 
the critics of our forms of government? 
They have appealed to our envy of the rich 
and our love of power; they have flattered 
us as "sovereigns," and implored us to make 
them our ministers of state; but when have 
they sounded the trumpet call of personal 
duty to the nation, or themselves set the 
example of personal sacrifice? 

For years we have been preaching to one 
another the gospel of voting-in the mil- 
lennium, and of financing it by new methods 
of taxation; but we have forgotten that the 

228 



THE DUTY OF NATIONAL DEFENSE 

Kingdom of God is within ourselves, and 
that its fullness of time must come by our 
own inner growth, and not by outward ob- 
servation. What has there been since the 
Spanish- American War to make any young 
man feel that he is really a part of the coun- 
try? What has he been taught of its mean- 
ing and of his place in it? But why not 
make him feel, at the time when the whole 
significance of life is dawning upon him, 
in that moment of adolescence when he 
craves an unlifting influence, that he is in 
truth a vital part of the nation? And why 
not leave to him, throughout his lifetime, 
the sweet memory that he has really served 
his country by fitting himself to be its de- 
fender? Why should he not have, as long 
as he lives, the lingering glow of that in- 
spiration felt by every old soldier who real- 
ly helped to save the Union, when he sees 
the flag go by? Then he would know what 

229 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

it is to be an American. Then he would be 
able to pass on to his sons and to his grand- 
sons the meaning of Americanism. 

There is in every one of us something 
more than the wish to be well fed and 
clothed, and to have an easy place in life. 
We feel, and we know, that there is some- 
thing greater and infinitely more important 
than our appetites and desires. To feel that 
we are a part of the larger life, that it has 
a right to command us, and that we are 
never our true selves unless we obey it — that 
is what makes us really men. 






VII 
NEW PERILS FOR AMERICANISM 



VII 

NEW PERILS FOR AMERICANISM 

If statesmanship consists in foresight and 
preparation to meet new conditions, there 
is at this moment greater need of it than at 
any time since our Civil War. 

It would be almost voluntary blindness 
not to perceive that this country is exposed 
to a double peril; for, while our wealth and 
resources are at present insufficiently pro- 
tected by our inadequate national defenses, 
rendering us liable to possible dangers from 
without, we may be called upon to face even 
more serious and more immediate misfor- 
tunes from within. 

THE INTERNATIONAL SITUATION 

At this moment, when all the Great Pow- 
ers of Europe are engaged in a struggle the 

233 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

most gigantic in its magnitude and the most 
bitter in its intensity that the world has 
ever known, when the laws of international 
intercourse, upon which we had become ac- 
customed to rely for our protection, are more 
unsettled than for centuries they have ever 
been, it may be that American Democracy 
will suddenly be subjected to a test of its 
virility. 

It is not, however, to any sudden military 
attack upon us that I look forward with 
most apprehension. It may well be that 
while foreign nations are preoccupied with 
so great a contest, and even long afterward, 
we shall remain immune from violence; but 
this does not, in the least degree, diminish 
our responsibility at this time for the pro- 
tection of American life and property, or 
justify the postponement of adequate prepa- 
ration for making our words and our rights 
respected in the world. 

234 



NEW PERILS FOR AMERICANISM 

We need especially to be impressed with 
the fact that it is not of a mere passing 
crisis in international affairs that we are 
now called upon to think; but of a long 
vista of possible future conditions, and above 
all of the formation and maintenance of the 
permanent policy by which our conduct as 
a nation is to be guided in the future. 

THE WORLD CONFLICT FOR TRADE 

If we subject the existing international 
situation to a close analysis and endeavor to 
discover what are the essential elements that 
enter into it and the hidden causes that 
have produced it, we find that, at the bot- 
tom of the present world conflict, are prob- 
lems of national economics which concern 
the industrial, commercial, and financial 
status of the Great Powers in their struggle 
for supremacy. The present war is, in fact, 

235 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

a battle for trade, and for the control of 
trade routes. It is primarily the Balkan and 
Near Eastern questions that have set the 
armies of Europe in motion. Serbia, the 
vanguard of Slavic predominance in the Bal- 
kan peninsula, blocked the way of the Aus- 
tro-German advance to Asia Minor and be- 
yond; involving the future mastery of the 
Adriatic and the ^Egean, the ultimate con- 
trol of Constantinople, the possible bottling 
up of Russia in the Black Sea, the control of 
the overland route to the Persian Gulf, and 
in consequence the position of the Austro- 
German Powers in the Mediterranean and 
the Indian Ocean. In the West the grand 
prize has been the possession of the rich de- 
posits of coal and iron of Belgium and 
France for the further development of in- 
dustry, and the acquisition by Germany of 
better ports for transatlantic commerce. In 
Poland it has been not only the possession 

236 



NEW PERILS FOR AMERICANISM 

of mineral resources but of agricultural land. 

THE POSSIBLE EXPANSION OF EMPIRE 

If all the territories now occupied by the 
Central Powers can be retained by them, it 
would mean the establishment of what would 
be the greatest continental and maritime em- 
pire that has ever existed; extending ulti- 
mately from the Baltic to the Persian Gulf, 
with positions of advantage on the North 
Sea, the Channel, the Adriatic, the iEgean, 
the Black Sea, the Mediterranean, and the 
Arabian Sea — undoubtedly making it, when 
developed, the greatest sea power on the 
globe. 

I have spoken of this combination as, in 
effect, one vast continental and maritime em- 
pire; for in this extended area there is no 
single political unit, or probable combina- 
tion of nominally separate States, that could 
successfully resist a word of command from 

237 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

Berlin. Whatever the form of subordina- 
tion might be, whether nominally allies, pro- 
tectorates, or constituent States in an im- 
perial federation, the result would be the 
same. A customs union, an interchange of 
raw materials and finished products, a cen- 
tral fiscal and military control, and a com- 
munity interest in the success of industry 
and commerce would bind together in one 
great economic organism about one hundred 
and thirty millions of men, with a military 
strength of more than ten millions, and a 
navy that might ultimately surpass any now 
existing in the world. 

It would, of course, be premature to con- 
clude that this is to be the necessary out- 
come of the present war. It might, of 
course, have a quite different issue. It might 
result in the permanent establishment of 
undisputed British supremacy on every sea, 
with such subsidiary sea rights for other 

238 



NEW PERILS FOR AMERICANISM 

Powers as the British Empire might gra- 
ciously be pleased to accord to them, while 
reserving to itself a monopoly of sea-borne 
commerce and the practical dictation of 
ocean freights to every part of the world. 

THE ALTERNATIVE OF WORLD RIVALRY 

It is not to the interest of the American 
people that any imperial colossus, either on 
land or sea, should bestride the world; and 
certainly not that any single military and 
naval preponderance should prevail. But 
if we were a weak nation, there would be 
for us a danger almost as portentous in a 
world-wide rivalry of Powers equally 
matched, struggling to possess the ill pro- 
tected resources of the less developed coun- 
tries, and to acquire control of all open or 
accessible markets. In that case, when the 
military conflict is ended, if it is in fact 

239 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

ever to be brought to a final termination, 
we should be placed in the position of mere 
neutrals, and without the support of allies, 
in an unceasing economic struggle; and we 
have already learned in the present contest 
what it means to be a "neutral," when ac- 
tion and inaction, participation and ab- 
stention, the vigorous assertion of our rights 
and the tacit renunciation of them are al- 
ternately urged upon us from opposite sides. 
There is, therefore, little prospect of our 
being able to maintain good relations and a 
free field of action, unless we are strong 
enough, without depending upon others, to 
take a firm stand on the principle that we 
are to enjoy perfect equality with all others 
in the trade and commerce of the world. 

OUR ADVANTAGE OF POSITION 

So far as Europe in its entirety is con- 
cerned, we are, if we could avail ourselves of 

240 



NEW PERILS FOR AMERICANISM 

our opportunity, in a position to secure our 
rightful privileges in any circumstances that 
may arise ; but to do so we must be strong in 
purpose and capable of execution. We are, 
in fact, with regard to Europe as a whole, 
in much the same position that Great Britain 
has occupied with regard to the Powers on 
the continent, ever since Cardinal Wolsey 
instituted the policy, which England has 
since systematically pursued, of balancing 
the continental Powers against one another, 
herself remaining free to pursue her indus- 
try and commerce, practically without in- 
terruption, while they were contesting their 
frontiers and wasting their resources in end- 
less wars. Had England not been an island, 
she could not have accomplished this. If 
we did not occupy a position of relative isola- 
tion afforded by a vast and resourceful con- 
tinental area, covering the richest zone of the 
western hemisphere, we could never dream 
17 241 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

of maintaining a strict neutrality between 
the contestants of the eastern hemisphere; 
but, thanks to that geographical advantage, 
while accessible to the two great oceans of 
the world upon which we front, we are able, 
upon one condition, to hold the balance of 
power in the world. That condition is that 
we must be strong, as England has been 
strong, upon the sea; and able, as England 
has been able, to guard our coasts from for- 
eign invasion. 

THE ADVANTAGE OF OUR DEMOCRACY 

There are — and this must be emphasized 
■ — two important differences between our 
situation and that of Great Britain, both of 
which are to our advantage. England's 
base is a limited insular area, insufficient for 
its own maintenance, upon which, as a 
foundation for her power, she has built up 

242 



NEW PERILS FOR AMERICANISM 

an empire composed of colonies in every 
quarter of the globe; while our base is the 
clean sweep of a broad continent, contain- 
ing within it practically every natural re- 
source, and sufficient in all respects to main- 
tain within its limits a population of un- 
checked growth and great prosperity. 

But a still more important difference is 
that, although England is a democracy so 
far as her own people are concerned, she is 
essentially an imperial Power so far as the 
rest of the world is concerned. And that 
difference is capital for her and for us. It 
is capital for her, because it is the imperial 
spirit that has made her great, and to the 
chariot wheels of imperial procedure her 
destiny is bound. It is capital for us, be- 
cause we are a democracy in very truth, com- 
posed of States of which even the least is 
equal in all the attributes of independence 
to the greatest ; and we have no need, or rea- 

243 



AMKKICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

son, or disposition to enter into rivalry with 
imperial ambitions in any part of the world. 

OUR POLICY MARKKI) OUT FOR US 

Our international policy is, therefore, 
plainly marked out for us. It is a policy 
of pacific industrial and commercial develop- 
ment, under adequate national defense. We 
have no acquisitive inclinations and enter- 
tain no aggressive designs. We desire to live 
in peace here in this great land where Provi- 
dence has placed us; to utilize its resources, 
and to enjoy the prosperity which our in- 
dustry and our enterprise may bring to us. 
We claim as our just right freedom and 
safely in our intercourse with friendly na- 
tions, arid desire if possible to live on terms 
of friendship with them all. We shall en- 
deavor to treat them all equally; but, if they 
wish to count us among their friends, they 

244 



NEW PERILS FOR AMERICANISM 

must treat us also as an equal. If we arc 
weak, vacillating, and pusillanimous in our 
dealings with them, we shall not receive, 

and shall not deserve, their respeet. And 
if it ever happens that we seem to them to 
care more for our ease, our wealth, and our 
personal safety than for our public interests, 
and our right to entertain, and to express, 
our candid opinions upon the rights and 
duties of the members of the society of 
States and what should constitute the law 
of nations, then we shall mark ourselves as 
their easy prey. 

THE ECONOMIC CONTEST 

I have said that the present conflict is at 
bottom a battle for trade; and we see in its 
terrific consequences what a battle for trade 
may mean. Let us not beguile ourselves 
with the illusion that, when the military re- 

245 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

sources of the contestants are exhausted, and 
peace comes as a consequence of the deple- 
tion of their fighting energies, this bat- 
tle is to cease. As a military enterprise, it 
will end when one or the other side per- 
ceives that it is hopeless to gain anything 
further and will, therefore, be ready to make 
concessions for the sake of peace. It will 
then be necessary to pass through the stages 
of diplomatic negotiation leading to the 
terms of settlement — a battle of preten- 
sions, seductions, arguments, and possibly 
compensations at the expense of defenseless 
innocents. When the treaties are signed, 
there will open the battle for recuperation — 
the race for quick preponderance in the 
world's markets. 

If men were reasonable, there would be 
a united effort to form compacts for just 
rules of procedure and for the maintenance 
of peace, and there will, undoubtedly, be 

246 



NEW PERILS FOR AMERICANISM 

such efforts; but the spirit of Imperialism 
is essentially unreasonable, and unless it is 
extinguished, there will result merely a new 
equation of forces, which may have a certain 
duration before it is again disturbed. How- 
ever this may be, the one certainty is that 
the economic contest will be resumed, and 
with renewed intensity. 

THE CONDITIONS OF THE STRUGGLE 

What, then, will be the conditions of the 
struggle? 

First of all, the antebellum trade rela- 
tions cannot for a generation or more be en- 
tirely restored. There is nowhere a disposi- 
tion to crown the future peace with commer- 
cial treaties guaranteeing general participa- 
tion in the benefit of most-favored-nation 
provisions. On the contrary, trade alliances 
based on the present military alliances, and 

247 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

already partly negotiated, will take their 
place. England, France, and Italy — three 
important maritime Powers — in January 
last, at a meeting in which more than one 
hundred and twenty chambers of commerce 
were represented, entered into an alliance 
to oppose Austrian and German commerce 
during the war and after it is ended, and 
to promote their own cooperation. "We 
have already completed a wall of steel 
around our foes," declared the French Pre- 
mier, M. Briand, at Rome, on the twelfth 
of February, in announcing the accession of 
Italy to the compact of the Entente Allies 
to forbid, under heavy penalties, the im- 
portation of any products from Austria or 
Germany. 

On the other hand, the great organization 
of German industries, the Hansabund, was 
at the same time, after a session participated 
in by representatives of all parts of Ger- 

248 



NEW PERILS FOR AMERICANISM 

many, petitioning the Imperial Chancellor 
to prepare and present to the Bundesrat 
a measure creating an "Economic General 
Staff" for the purpose of directing and 
controlling all German business, especially 
imports and exports, after the war, and to 
have charge of the transition of German in- 
dustry and commerce from a war to a peace 
basis, with the purpose of controlling ab- 
solutely all importations into Germany 
after the war is ended. 



THE MILITARIZATION OF INDUSTRY 

When we add to this governmental direc- 
tion of commerce the central organization 
and supervision of productive industry — a 
practice already highly developed in Ger- 
many, and having a rapid evolution in other 
belligerent countries, even in England, 
where it is a startling innovation — we realize 

249 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

that both commerce and industry are to be 
"militarized," if one may use such a word, 
as never before in the history of the 
world. 

That this means much for efficiency and 
for economy cannot be doubted. Between 
the mine from which metal is extracted, or 
the forest from which wood is hewn, and 
the foreign port at which the finished pro- 
duct of manufacture is finally delivered for 
sale, there is to be no waste. The laborer 
in the mine, the attendant who brings the 
ore to the surface, the railroad that handles 
it, the furnace that refines it, the factory 
that receives it and transforms it into an 
article of utility, the steamship company that 
carries it across the ocean — all these are to 
be under a system of direction, by which 
they are financed and their rates of remu- 
neration fixed, as exact, as rigid, and as au- 
thoritative as that of an army engaged in a 

250 






NEW PERILS FOR AMERICANISM 

military campaign upon which may depend 
the destiny of a nation. 



THE OBSTACLES TO EUROPEAN RECUPERATION 

But what can these belligerent countries 
do, it may be asked, when they have lost 
great numbers of able-bodied men, when 
they have used up their available capital in 
munitions of war, and when they have suf- 
fered its attendant ravages? Will they not 
be so utterly impoverished as to be able to 
produce nothing, and stand in dire need of 
everything? 

A little reflection will show us how fan- 
tastic such expectations are. It is impos- 
sible to picture to ourselves that any con- 
siderable part of Europe, outside of un- 
happy Poland, will be in a state of utter 
and permanent ruin. After eighteen 
months of war, with the exception of Aus- 

251 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

tria, Germany, and Russia, we are assured 
that the exports of the belligerents are 
nearly normal. The customary channels of 
distribution have changed, but the amount 
of exportation has not been so seriously af- 
fected as mi#ht be supposed. According to 
the figures published by the Board of Trade 
for the month of January last, the exports 
of great Britain show an increase of more 
than $42,000,000. Among the largest items 
were cotton goods shipped to India, France, 
Egypt, and South and Central America. 
French exports are reported as nearly nor- 
mal, and in some products the sales of 
France abroad have increased by many mil- 
lions of francs. 

TIIK QUESTION OF FUTURE MARKETS 

Willi Germany the case is different. 

With her merchant marine driven from the 

252 



NEW PERILS FOR AMERICANISM 

oceans of the world, both her export and im- 
port trade, which in 1913 amounted to more 
than $4,500,000,000, has been almost en- 
tirely suppressed. But what is to hap- 
pen when, at the conclusion of peace, she 
again enters upon her task of recuperation? 
Thus far, her productive and distributive 
agencies, although temporarily reduced to 
inactivity so far as world commerce is con- 
cerned, remain substantially intact, and only 
await the opportunity to resume their opera- 
tions. Her fixed capital remains for the 
most part unaffected. Her circulating cap- 
ital, particularly her gold, has been to a con- 
siderable extent kept within her own bor- 
ders, and is still in her possession, because 
she has not spent it lavishly abroad. It is 
chiefly the immediate product of her human 
energies that has been expended in the war. 
To her credit, when liquidation comes, will 
stand the sums owing to her, and still un- 

253 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

paid, in the form of outstanding balances. 
In short, her debt is mainly to her own peo- 
ple. They will be the poorer, and will, there- 
fore, have to work the harder, with longer 
hours and smaller rewards; but they are a 
people capable of extreme frugality and 
great industry. 

Her productive personnel will have been 
diminished by the loss of human life, but 
this is not irreparable ; for the Germans are 
a fecund race, whose annual increase 
amounts to nearly a million souls, not to 
speak of the populations that may be added 
by territorial conquest. 

If this augmented area should include all 
the territories at present actually occupied 
by the Imperial armies, which the future 
will determine, it would not only show an 
immense increase of natural resources of 
every kind, but, as illustrated by a map re- 
cently published by the Frankfurter Zei- 

254, 



NEW PERILS FOR AMERICANISM 

tung, would just about double the former 
superfices of the German Empire. It is true 
that the loss of the German colonies, so far 
as mere area is concerned, would, if per- 
manent, more than counterbalance these ter- 
ritorial accessions; but this would not di- 
rectly affect the productive powers of the 
Empire. 

The real problem in the German battle 
for industrial and commercial recuperation 
will be to find open markets for her enor- 
mous capacity of production. With her 
greatest customer, Great Britain, and the 
Russian market to which she formerly un- 
der a favorable commercial treaty furnished 
more than half of all Russian imports, lost 
to her, not to mention the other belligerent 
countries that may close their ports to her, 
where is she to place her surplus manufac- 
tures ? 

But that is not the whole of the problem. 
255 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

Her present antagonists, in their battle for 
recuperation, will have heavy debts to pay. 
They will be in every open mart in the world 
her strenuous rivals. And they will enter 
upon this competition, not only with new 
and greatly intensified motives; they will 
do so, at least some of them, with increased 
efficiency. "We have introduced scores of 
millions' worth of automatic machinery," 
says an English minister, "which will have 
an enormous effect upon our industries when 
the war is over." 



OUR OWN ECONOMIC SITUATION 

Here, then, is what we, in America, shall 
have to face. And what are our industrial 
defenses? 

It will not do to base our expectations 
upon present conditions, for these are but 
temporary, essentially abnormal, and cer- 

256 



NEW PERILS FOR AMERICANISM 

tain to change. Our present appearance of 
industrial prosperity is only superficial and 
fundamentally unreal. In the amount of 
our exports we are at present leading the 
world; but for that there are obvious rea- 
sons. The first is that there is for the mo- 
ment an unusual market, because our ordi- 
nary competitors are engaged in military 
operations which require their main and al- 
most exclusive attention. The second is 
that, apart from our abundant crops, which 
may not always be so bountiful, the great 
percentage of our exports is composed of 
products that will not be wanted when peace 
really comes. Were these causes not in 
operation, we should, perhaps, be today, as 
we were in 1913, limiting our enterprises and 
trying to provide for idle workmen. 

Not only so, but our very prosperity 
creates for us a danger. There is no coun- 
try in the world where a sudden, or a pro- 
is 257 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

gressive, lowering of the standard of living 
among the people would be such a calam- 
ity ; for the reason that our natural resources 
are so great, and our possibilities of widely 
diffused prosperity are so evident, that the 
American people will not gracefully submit 
to privations, and the experience of them, 
acting upon a sensitive and decisive temper- 
ament, would expose us to social unrest in 
various forms. 

Nor would our extraordinary accumula- 
tion of gold, as a basis of currency, be an 
advantage to us. If there is sound philos- 
ophy in the quantitative theory of money 
— the misinterpretation of which has already 
led us very near to the brink of financial 
ruin — there would soon, in adverse circum- 
stances among our people, be a demand for 
an expansion of the currency, based on the 
increased volume of the gold basis, which 
would tend to raise prices in this country 

258 



NEW PERILS FOR AMERICANISM 

at a time when the cost of American produc- 
tion, in comparison with low prices for for- 
eign goods seeking to force themselves into 
our market, would stifle new enterprises, im- 
peril old ones, and bring upon us a condi- 
tion of industrial stagnation and unemploy- 
ment such as we have never known. 



THE MEANING OF MILITARIZING INDUSTRY 

In this coming trade rivalry American- 
ism will be subjected to a severe trial. Are 
we to adopt the new economic policy of Im- 
perialism, and militarize industry? More 
and more we see the signs of a growing de- 
pendence upon governmental action in the 
solution of economic problems. If we lack 
a merchant marine, it is said, we must 
ask the Government to build ships and or- 
ganize steamship lines. When something 
goes wrong with the railroads, or when peo- 

259 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

pie entertain a prejudice against them and 
a disposition to punish them, a cry is 
raised : Let the Government own and man- 
age the railroads. 

In truth, there has been already a growth 
of governmental functions and activities in 
the United States far greater than the av- 
erage citizen imagines. It is startling to 
be assured that, in the Treasury Department 
alone, there has been an increase of nine 
hundred and thirty-eight offices within the 
last two years; and that in the past four 
years the total number of Government em- 
ployees has increased from 384,088 to 482,- 
721. In fourteen presidential elections no 
successful candidate ever had so large a pop- 
ular plurality as this vote would give, and 
only eight have ever surpassed it. 

But the militarization of industry does 
not consist merely in our enlargement of 
governmental activity; it involves also the 

260 



NEW PERILS FOR AMERICANISM 

Government's right to command, prescribe, 
and compel. It would not only take from 
every man his right to conduct his own busi- 
ness, but it would employ him as its pas- 
sive instrument in carrying out its plans, as- 
signing him such a place and such a com- 
pensation as it might see fit. And yet gov- 
ernments are only men! 

THE POSSIBILITIES OF AMERICAN INITIATIVE 

In the American economic system reliance 
has been placed upon the initiative of the 
individual, encouraged and protected by the 
State. There will, perhaps, in the future, 
be necessary, as a measure of conservation, 
closer supervision in some particulars than 
was demanded when the natural resources 
of the country offered to everyone a richer 
and more immediate reward of labor and 
enterprise. The regulation of industry can- 

261 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

not be wholly denied to Government ; but it 
would be not only revolutionary but of 
doubtful advantage to the community as a 
whole to substitute for individual initiative 
a governmental conduct of industry. Even 
as respects efficiency, we may doubt if mili- 
tarized industry would bring to those en- 
gaged in it returns at all comparable to the 
well coordinated efforts of private initiative. 
The question opens an interesting field of 
discussion into which it is impossible to enter 
here; but the analogy between militarized 
industry and slave labor on the one hand, 
and between individual initiative and free 
labor on the other, should be sufficient to 
justify the probability that the latter, if af- 
forded a fair opportunity, would eventually 
prove the more efficient. Whatever may be 
true of a temporary emergency, such as a 
great military crisis creates, in the long run 
the expectation of increased personal re- 

262 



NEW PERILS FOR AMERICANISM 

wards should prove a more powerful motive 
to exertion than any system of compulsion 
that could be applied. The success of the 
American system, however, will require that 
the Government should not depress and dis- 
courage the spirit of private enterprise. On 
the contrary, by enlightening it and smooth- 
ing its way to success it might evoke the 
maximum productive energies of the nation. 

THE DANGER OF ECONOMIC MENACE 

Whatever our ability may be to maintain 
and render triumphant our American con- 
ception of economic success, it is practically 
certain, as all competent authorities admit, 
that, when the European industrial strug- 
gle for recuperation is resumed, there will 
be an unprecedented attempt to unload for- 
eign products on our shores, as well as a 
vigorous rivalry for all foreign trade, 

263 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

To meet this future inundation of cheap 
wares, which if not prevented would ad- 
versely affect our own industries, the enact- 
ment of certain "anti-dumping" laws has 
been proposed, declaring underselling to be 
illegal, on the ground of "unfair competi- 
tion." 

But if we ourselves intend anywhere to 
undersell anyone else in the markets of the 
world, how can we consistently lay down 
the principle that underselling is "unfair 
competition"? Can we maintain the prin- 
ciple that to lower the price is to lose the 
market? And by what authority may the 
Government at Washington undertake to 
fix the minimum price of commodities of for- 
eign origin that shall be considered fair? Is 
the Government then to determine prices 
also in the United States? But, if not, on 
what ground is discrimination to be justi- 
fied? 

264 



NEW PERILS FOR AMERICANISM 

Such a policy would not only prove an 
apple of discord in the realm of valuation 
and discussion, but a veritable casus belli 
in a diplomatic sense; for, while there is a 
sovereign right to impose customs duties, 
and this no responsible government will dis- 
pute, for all exercise it in some degree, it 
is a different matter positively to prohibit 
trade with a foreign country. It is an act 
of economic war, which would not only de- 
stroy our most important source for the 
raising of revenue, but involve us in con- 
troversies and complications with countries 
with which we desire to deal, and expose us 
to reprisals that would seriously damage our 
export trade with our best customers. 

THE INDUSTRIAL SITUATION TO BE FACED 

There is no doubt that, when the present 
belligerents in Europe once enter upon the 

265 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

struggle for recuperation, they will lower 
their prices to a point that will enable them 
to find a market. It will seem to their gov- 
ernments, and these will urge upon the peo- 
ple as an obligation of patriotism, that the 
lengthening of the laboring day, the accep- 
tance of smaller wages, and the reduction of 
the profits of business, will be necessary in 
order to secure markets for their goods. It 
will be a form of warfare less terrible than 
that in the trenches, but it will not be without 
its hardships. Unless we are prepared to en- 
courage the close and loyal union of capital 
and labor, by offering them every reasonable 
form of guarantee and confidence for the fu- 
ture, and by permitting them to work out, in 
their own way, the great problems of world 
competition under enlightened guidance, we 
shall share, perhaps beyond the endurance 
of our people, in the dire consequences of 

266 



NEW PERILS FOR AMERICANISM 

a contest from which proper foresight might 
wholly exempt us. 



THE OPPORTUNITY OF AMERICA 

There is an aspect of this subject which 
we should not permit ourselves to overlook. 
We have labored long and sincerely in our 
international councils for peace, and for the 
organized means of preserving peace. Our 
efforts have been, to a great degree, in vain. 
There is no just cause affecting the rights 
of man that has brought about this terrific 
and murderous European war. It has been 
visited upon Europe, and upon the world, 
by a spirit of imperial domination that we, 
in this American democracy, do not share. 
Why, then, should our standard of life, as a 
free people, in a resourceful country, be 
lowered to meet the economic exigencies of 

267 



AMERICANISM: WHAT IT IS 

those whose rulers have inflicted this curse 
upon mankind? If men would be governed 
by reason, respect one another's rights, and 
live in peace, there would be an abundance 
for all. Let us prove, therefore, that De- 
mocracy can perform what Imperialism has 
failed to accomplish; that a well ordered 
government, based on the rights of the peo- 
ple, and supported by the sense of duty of 
the people, is able not only to maintain its 
existence in the midst of discordant nations, 
but to realize its own ideals of human happi- 
ness, and become an example and an in- 
spiration for the progress of mankind. 






INDEX 



Absolute democracy, dif- 
fers little from im- 
perialism, 130-131 
illogical, 128-129 
Absolutism, destruction of, 
27 
of Democracy, 35-36 
renounced by people, 55- 
56, 66-67 
"Agreement of the People" 

of 1647, 14 
Alliances for war, for trade, 
247-249 
we shall not enter into, 
222 
America First, 191 
America, opportunity of, 

267-268 
American attitude towards 
rights and liberties, tra- 
ditional, 186-188 
American conception of the 
State, essential elements 
in, 41-42 
American Democracy, test 
of, 125-128, 133, 146- 
148, 153-154, 234 
American doctrine, the dis- 
tinctive, 22-26 



American example, impor- 
tance of, to the world, 
39-41 

American initiative, possi- 
bilities of, 261-263 

American interests, our spe- 
cial, 219-221 

American people will not 
submit to privations, 
258 

American republics, claims 
upon, 220, 222 
exploitation of, 219 

Anarchy, suppression of, 
152-153 

Arbitration, international, 
196 

Aristotle on influence of 
demagog, 57-59 

Armament, burden of, 196 

Armed force, prerogative of 
Sovereign State, 8-9 

Austro-German struggle for 
supremacy in near East, 
236-238 

Authority, public, true na- 
ture of, 103-104 
rightful, and supreme pow- 
er identified, 12-13 



269 



INDEX 



Automatic machinery, ef- 
fect of, on industry, 256 

Balance of power in govern- 
ment, encroachments 
on, 62-64 

Balance of power in the 
world, we may hold, 
242 

Balkan question, relation 
of, to present war, 
236 

Briand, M., on foes of allies, 
248 

British Empire. See Great 
Britain 

Burke, Edmund, on Ameri- 
can example, 39 
on oppression of minority 
by majority, 131-132 

Capital, German, kept with- 
in borders, 253-254 
and labor, union of, to be 
encouraged, 266 
Central Powers, possible 
continental and mari- 
time expansion of, 237- 
238 
Chatham, Lord. See Pitt, 

Wm. 
Citizen, a constituent of the 
State, 133-134 
has no rights under sov- 
ereign power, 12-13 
Citizen - defenders, trained 
body of, 224-225 



Citizens, State must pro- 
tect, 199-203, 213 
Civil and religious interests, 

separation of, 30-32 
Civil War, severest test of 

constitutionalism, 49 
Class antagonism, 73 
Class control, 71-74 
Coal deposits of France and 
Belgium a war prize, 
236 
Colonists, American, con- 
ception of government 
of, 17-23, 25-28 
Commerce, right to free 

passage of, 188, 222 
Competition, unfair, 264 
Constitution, a, of civiliza- 
tion, 169 
the conscience of a State, 
138 
Constitution, the, attacks 
upon, 74-75, 116, 147 
founded on the New- 
tonian theor}', 87- 
88 
opposition to, 95-98, 
117-119 
not a class guaran- 
tee, 110-113 
proposed changes in, 

59-61 
protection of States 
guaranteed in, 200 
real significance of, 32- 

34 
respected, 70 



270 



INDEX 



Constitutional Democracy, 
foundation of, human 
personality, 129 
recognizes rights of na- 
tions, 166-168 
Constitutional government, 
basic principles of, 51 
cause of failures in, 68-69 
preservation of, 79 
Constitutional guarantees, 
hostility to, 34-36 
organization for conser- 
vation of, 81-82 
value of, 113-115 
Constitutional limitations, 
encroachments upon, 
62-65 
Constitutionalism, dangers 
to, 71-73, 77 
friends and enemies of, 
50-53 
Constitutions, problems of 
framers of, 103-104 
the first written, 29 
Corporate properties, valu- 
ation of, 106, 113 
Court nullification of legis- 
lation, 107 
Courts instituted to main- 
tain Constitution, 28 
Currency, dangers of expan- 
sion of, 258-259 
Customs duties, right to im- 
pose, 265 



Danger, unrecognized source 
of, 214-217 



Darwin, government com- 
pared with theories of, 
88-91 
Declaration of Rights, 

Mass., 22 
Defense, economic argu- 
ments against, 205-206 
first line of, 217-219 
internal development un- 
der adequate, 244 
pacifist antagonism to, 

209-210 
question of national, 195, 

197-200 
young men and national, 
224-226 
Defenses, our industrial, 

256-259 
Demagogism, constitution 

a bar to, 56-59 
Democracy, advantages of 
our own, over Great 
Britain, 242-244 
and demagogism, 57-59 
conflict with imperialism, 

139-141 
incompatible with impe- 
rialism, 181-183 
responsibility in a true, 

133-134 
superiority of, over im- 
perialism, 127 
test of, as a theory, 127- 

129 
test of our own, 153-154 
triumph of, 154-156 



271 



INDEX 



Democracy versus imperial- 
ism, 134-135, 268 
weak points in, 144-148 

Democratic ideal, the, 151- 
153 

Diplomacy our first line of 
defense, 217-219 

Diplomatic crises, alterna- 
tives in, 215 

Disraeli, protagonist of Im- 
perialism, 150 

Economic contest, the, at 
close of war, 245-247, 
266 
struggle for supremacy 
in, 247-249 

Economic General Staff to 
control German busi- 
ness, 249 

Economic menace of foreign 
wares, 263-265 

Economic situation, our 
own, 256-259, 261-263 

Economic thinking, domi- 
nance of, 204-207 

Economics, problems of na- 
tional, 235 

Efficiency under militarized 
industry, 250, 262 

Empire, of Central Powers, 

possible expansion of, 

237-238 

of Great Britain, possible 

supremacy of, 238-239 

Empires, alliances of, and 
republics, 182-183 



Empires do not federate, 142 

Employers have no right to 
exist, 106, 112-113 

England, advantages of in- 
sular situation of, 241, 
242-243 

English Revolution of 1688, 
17-18 

Entente Allies, trade com- 
pact of, 248 

Equality, means of guaran- 
teeing, 53-56 

Europe reaching out for 
world dominion, 219 

European question in Mex- 
ico, 220 

European recuperation, ob- 
stacles to, 251-252 

Executive, powers of the, 
54-55 
prerogatives of the, 63-64 

Experiment, substitution of, 
for experience, 90-92 

Exports, American, 257 
of belligerents, 252-255 

Federation of nations does 
not involve national ex- 
tinction, 168 

Force, armed, relation of 
peace to, 185-186 

Foreign policy, need of a 
clear, 221-223 

France, exports of, 252 

Geographic isolation, our, 
abolished, 218 



272 



INDEX 



Geographical position, ad- 
vantages of our, 240- 
241 
Germany, export and im- 
port trade of, 252-253 
industrial control in, 249 
world's markets closed to, 
255 
Gladstone, protagonist of 

Democracy, 150-151 
Gold, effect of extraordi- 
nary accumulation of, 
258-259 
Government, a just, essen- 
tially self - limiting 
138-139 
should exist for the 
governed, 175-176 
all just, based on recog- 
nition of individual 
rights and liberties, 
15,18 
biological analogy on, 88- 

91 
ill-considered proposals of 

change in, 36-39 
obligation of, to protect 

citizens, 198-203 
of laws not men, 30 
price regulation by, 264 
real problem of, 129-132 
there should be nothing 
in, not governed by 
law, 27 
Government employees, in- 
crease in, 260 



Government ownership,dan- 

gers of, 259-263 
Governmental direction of 

commerce, 249 
Great Britain, an imperial 
power, 242-243 
conflict of imperialism 
and democracy in, 
149-151, 155 
exports of, 252 
policy of, toward conti- 
nental powers, 241 
undisputed supremacy of, 
possible outcome of 
war, 238-239 
Guarantees, constitutional, 
hostility to, 34-36 
value of, 113-115 
for equal rights, 51-56 

Hague, The, international 
conferences at, 164, 177 

Hansabund, the, organiza- 
tion of German indus- 
tries, 248-249 

Heritage, the American, 45 

Holy Alliance, protest to 
the, 188 

Huerta government, obliga- 
tions of the, 220-221 

Ideals, necessity of national, 
226-228 

Imitators of American sys- 
tem, 40-41 

Imperial armies, area oc- 
cupied by the, 254-255 



19 



273 



INDEX 



Imperial domination, spirit 

of, cause of war, 267 
Imperialism, an aggressive 
principle in world poli- 
tics, 179 
and international law, 

161-166 
conflict of, with democ- 
racy, 139 r 141 
contrasted with democ- 
racy, 134-135 
incompatibility of, and 
democracy, 181-183 
in Great Britain, 149- 

151, 155 
our own relation to, 148- 

149, 153, 156 
result of absolute democ- 
racy is, 130-131 
strength of, 142-145 
the State a superior en- 
tity under, 3 
unreasonable, 247 
Income tax, 60-61 
Individual, danger to the, 
under irresponsible 
power, 114 
initiative of the, in in- 
dustry, 261-263 
no authority can deprive 
the, of inherent 
rights, 104 
relation of, to State, 4-5 
subordinated to State, 67 
the, and wealth, 99-100 
needs self-dependence, 
119-120 



Individuals constitute the 
whole of the State, 19 

Industrial situation to be 
faced, 265-267 

Industry, analogy between 
militarized, and slave 
labor, 262 
meaning of militarizing, 

259-261 
militarization of, 249-251 

Inhabitants of conquered 
territory, fate of, 9-10 

Inheritance, right of, ques- 
tioned, 97, 105 

International intercourse, 
laws of, unsettled, 234 

International law, Ameri- 
can attitude toward, 
187-188, 223 
foundations of, shaken, 

171 
real basis of, 161-164 

International police force, 
196 

International problem, the 
present, 223-224 

International situation, the, 
233-235 

Iron deposits of France and 
Belgium a war prize, 236 

Judicial authority distinct- 
ive feature of American 
conception, 40 

Judicial settlement of in- 
ternational differences, 
177 



274 



55,65 
respect for the, main- 
tained, 70-71 
Jural society an association 

of equals, 165-166 
Justice, international, our 
policy toward, 222 
relation of, to peace, 183- 

184 
universal, necessary to 
peace, 198, 209 

King and Parliament mere- 
ly institutions of the 
State, 19 

Kipling, the law of the jun- 
gle, 143-144 

Law, diminished respect for, 

75-76 

equality of, does not 

make equality of 

condition, 98 

essential permanence of, 

89-90 
fruits of government by, 
70-71 

(fundamental, basis of so- 
cial justice, 93-96 
spirit of revolt against, 
115-117 
principles of, belittled, 
87 
self-imposed, voluntary 
submission to, 15 



INDEX 



Law, sovereignty the source 
of and above, 11-12 
the, defined, 103 
Laws of equalization, 98, 112 
League to enforce peace, 

180-181 
Legislation, and taxation, 
distinction between, 
necessary to liberty, 25 
by minorities, 137 
new, nature of, as de- 
manded, 104-108 
radical, 97-98 
unconstitutional en- 
croachments on, 64- 
65 
Legislative bodies, restric- 
tions on, 54, 64 
Lincoln, Pres., on weakness 

of republics, 155 
Locke, John, philosophy of, 

familiar to many, 18 
Louis Napoleon, American 
protest to, against in- 
vasion of Mexico, 188- 
189 

Magna Charta, limitations 
of, 22 
personal guarantees in, 
17, 26 
Majorities, danger of un- 
limited power in hands 
of, 95 
renunciation of absolute 

power of, 40 
tyranny of, 36, 203 



275 



INDEX 



Majority, Burke on oppres- 
sion of minority by the, 
131-132 
legislation by the, 128 
will of the, authority, 
74 
Majority absolutism, irre- 
sponsibility of, 135-138 
Markets, question of future, 

252-256 
Massachusetts, separation 
and distribution of 
powers in, 29-30 
Massachusetts Constitution 
of 1780, end of govern- 
ment asserted in, 21- 
22 
Mayflower, compact of the, 
first protest against 
mere power, 14-15 
Mexico, anarchy in, 153 
causes of disorder in, 69, 

75 
European question in, 
220 
Militarism, fear of, 189-191 
repugnance to develop- 
ment of, 173 
Minority, oppression of, by 
majority, 131, 136-138 
Montesquieu, separation 
and distribution of 
powers adopted from, 
29 
Morality, private and pub- 
lic, 7-8 
State not governed by, 7 



Nation, duty of the, to the 
future, 228-230 

National security, present 
basis of, 171-173 

National strength, neces- 
sity of, 174-175 

Near Eastern question and 
the present war, 236 

Neutral, what it means to 
be, 240 

Newton and Darwin, gov- 
ernment compared with 
theories of, 88-91 

Obligation, our primary na- 
tional, 198-201 

Organization of industry, 
central, 249 

Pacifism, effects of political, 
209-211 
influence of, 207-209 
Parliament, right of, to leg- 
islate for and tax col- 
onies, 25 
Parliament of man only 
realizable through de- 
mocracy, 156 
Patriotism, economic obli- 
gation of, 266 
influence of an enlight- 
ened, 191 
Peace, armed defense to se- 
cure, 180-181 
concessions for the sake 
of, 246 



276 



INDEX 



Peace, precedence of, over 
honor, 214 
relation of, to force, 185- 
186 
American attitude 
toward, 186-188 
to justice, 183-185 
through justice, 198, 209, 
221, 222 
People, every, should main- 
tain its own govern- 
ment, 152 
Philanthropy, radical pro- 
posals mask under, 
109-110 
Philippines, the, American 

attitude toward, 177 
Pilgrims, compact of gov- 
ernment of the, 14- 
15 

» political inheritance of 
the, 17-19 
Pitt, Wm., on America, 39 
on the Stamp Act, 24-25 
Platform of world politics, 

176 
Policy, our foreign, 221-223 
our international, 244- 
245 
Political theory, American 
contribution to, 27-28 
Politics, fruits of the new, 

201-204 
Power, absolute, of govern- 
ing authority, 11-12 
of majorities, re- 
nounced, 40 



Power, American protest 
against mere, 13-15 
arbitrary, renunciation 
of, by people, 29-30, 
06-67, 71 
results of failure to re- 
nounce, 67-69 
dangers of irresponsible, 
within State, 113-1 15 
self-limitation of, foun- 
dation of democracy, 
133 
Powers, encroachment on 
balance of, 62-65 
legislative, judicial and 
executive, separation 
of, 30 
Powers of Europe, alliance 
of three important 
maritime, 248 
balance of the, 241 
conflict of the, for trade 
supremacy, 235-236 
gigantic struggle of the 

Great, 233-234 
rivalry of the, a danger to 
America, 239-240 
Preamble to Constitution, 
provision for defense 
in, 199 
Preparation for defense of 
free institutions, 173, 
190-191, 234 
arguments against mili- 
tary, 205 
President, the, prerogatives 
of, 63-64 



277 



INDEX 



President, tour of, for pre- 
paredness, 214 
Prestige, loss of national, 

211-214 
Prince, will of the, law, 100- 

101, 134 
Principle of equality of 

trade, 239 
Principles, American plat- 
form of, 175-177 
of right embodied in self- 
government, 28 
opposition to American, 

177-179 
revolt against fixed, 86- 

88, 126 
versus personalities, 78- 
79 
Propaganda, radical, 116 

pacifist, 207-208 
Property, distribution of 
private, 100-103 
exemption of private, 

from capture, 177 
rightful ownership of, 104 
Property class and Consti- 
tution, 105, 110-111 
Prosperity, danger in our 
present, 257-259 

Reason versus emotion, 92- 

95 
appeal to, 170 
Recuperation, struggle for, 

251, 255, 265 
Religion, separated from 

state, 31-32 



Republics, alliances of, with 

empires, 182-183 
Resources, insufficiently 

protected, 233 
Revolt, spirit of, against 

law, 115-117 
Rights, American, our gov- 
ernment has defended, 
188-189 
as the gifts of society, 

100-103 
equal, establishment of, 
among nations, 223 
human, distinctive Amer- 
ican doctrine of, 22- 
23, 126, 202 
inalienable, a wrong con- 
ception of, 106 
government must re- 
spect, 129-130 
individual, guaranteed in 
Constitution, 33-34, 
86 
just government based 

on, 15, 18, 51-55 
not to be surrendered, 

20 
salvation of political 
future, 80 
national, existence of, 

164-169 
natural, none under ab- 
solute democracy, 
127-128 
of citizens, State must 
protect, 199-203, 234 



278 



INDEX 



Rights, of man not cause of 
present war, 267 
of peoples respected only 
when defended, 178 
of States, foundation of 
international law, 
162-163 
Rights and liberties, cer- 
tain, never to be 
abridged, 26 
State should preserve, 21 
Rousseau, doctrine of, not 

accepted, 33 
Ruler, all rights centered in, 
100-102 
compulsory obedience to, 
10 

Senators, popular election 

of, 60 
Serbia blocked Austro-Ger- 

man advance, 236 

Social forces, drift of, 75-78 

Social justice, law basis of, 

true, 93 

new conception of, 98 

Social progress, American 

interest in, 227 
Social reforms, accomplish- 
ment of, 110 
Society, never achieved any 
industrial activity, 99 
rights as gifts of, 100, 112 
Sovereign people, abuse of 
rights of, 101-103 
renounce absolutism, 55, 
66 



Sovereign State, and armed 
force, 8-9 
international law would 
limit, 164 
Sovereign States, society of, 

164 
Sovereignty, essential lim- 
its of, 19-22 
not unlimited authority, 

127, 130 
of States in international 
dealings, 165 - 166, 
169 
self-limiting, or imperial- 
ism, 139 
supreme power, 11 
Stamp Act of 1765, Pitt on, 

24-25 
Standard of living, lowering 

of, a calamity, 258 
State, the, alleged immuni- 
ties of, 6-9 
defined, 3 

duty of, to protect citi- 
zens, 199-200 
essential elements in 
American conception 
of, 41-42 
new conception of, 16-19 
predatory beginnings of, 

9-10 
preeminence of, 4-6 
purpose of, protection of 
individual rights and 
liberties, 23 
reasons for irresponsibil- 
ity of, 10-13 



279 



INDEX 



State, subject to its own 
fundamental law, 103- 
104 
true nature of, deter- 
mined by its end, 21- 
22 
unlimited authority of, 
under imperialism, 
164 
Statesmanship, need of, 233 
Struggle for economic su- 
premacy, 247-249 

Taxation of American col- 
onies, 24-25 
Trade, equality with all in, 
240 
prohibition of, with for- 
eign country, act of 
war, 265 
world conflict for, 235- 
237, 245-246 
Trade alliances based on 
military alliances, 247- 
249 
Treasury Department, in- 
crease of offices in, 260 
Treaties, arbitration, 209, 
210 
no security against vio- 
lence, 171 
Tribute, payment of, to con- 
queror, 10 

Violence, suppression of, in- 
ternational problem, 
223 



Wage-earners need consti- 
tutional guarantees, 
111-112 
War, peace-loving country 
not secure from, 172 
political pacifism afraid 

of, 212-213 
possible outcome of pres- 
ent, 237-239 
propositions for avoiding, 
195-196 
Wealth, limitation of, 97 
new theory of, 99-100 
Wolsey, Cardinal, institut- 
ed balance of power, 
241 
Workers, remuneration of, 

106, 112 
World organization, Amer- 
ican union an example 
for, 42 
democracy or imperialism 
in, 140-142, 156-157 
obstacles to, 43-45, 169- 

171 
possibility of, 167-169 
World-power, this country 

as a, 214, 218 
World rivalry, alternative 

of, 239-240 
World's markets, race for 
preponderance in, 246 

Young men, attitude of our, 
224-226 
meaning of our country 
to the, 229-230 



280 



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